LEGISLATIVE BRANCH FINANCIAL MANAGERS COUNCIL Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request Overview The Legislative Branch Financial Managers Council (LBFMC), established by charter on March 26, 1996, is a cooperative undertaking among legislative branch entities to improve financial management throughout the legislative branch and its individual entities. LBFMC provides a communication network between the key managers who are responsible for maintaining and improving the financial management systems that support operations within the various entities of the legislative branch. The following entities are members of LBFMC: Architect of the Capitol, Library of Congress, Office of Compliance, U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Congressional Budget Office, U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. Government Printing Office, U.S. House of Representatives, and U.S. Senate. Fiscal Year 2003 Highlights LBFMC continued to meet to discuss and establish consistent financial policies, procedures, and systems throughout the legislative branch, as appropriate. During fiscal year 2003, the LBFMC: monitored legislative branch initiatives to implement the next generation, financial management systems, including server-based capabilities; continued to facilitate the development of standard processes for presenting uniform budget requests for mandatory pay; delivered guidelines on the form and content for preparing agency budgets, FTE, and financial management information to both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on January 21, 2003, in accordance with a directive by the Senate Legislative Branch Appropriations LEGISLATIVE BRANCH FINANCIAL MANAGERS COUNCIL Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request facilitated a review by the General Accounting Office regarding the preparation of a zero-based budget process; and continued to advise the Architect of the Capitol on the steps being taken to enhance its financial management systems and operations, including hiring new staff. Participating entities are continuing efforts to implement: the LBFMC's statement of Visions, Goals, and Strategies for Financial Management in the Legislative Branch; the federal government's accounting, internal control, and financial system standards, including the U. S. Government Standard General Ledger; and other processes and systems needed to ensure that auditable financial statements can be produced and receive an unqualified opinion. Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 Performance Plans In fiscal year 2004, the LBFMC will continue to collaborate with participating LBFMC entities to implement a shared legislative branch-wide financial management system procured by the Library of Congress during FY 2003. Individual entities have requested funds in their respective FY 2004 and FY 2005 budgets to support the implementation of the shared system. During fiscal years 2004 and 2005, LBFMC will continue initiatives, including efforts to: identify and document best practices for financial management operations, financial statement preparation, and related financial and compliance audits; promote best practices in financial management, including a lead-agency concept for addressing common issues to incorporate proven expertise into agency operations (i.e., one agency pilots new technology before others make investments); and continue to work together to implement off-the-shelf financial management software packages, which support integrated, customer-driven, output-oriented legislative branch-wide financial management systems. Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request LBFMC requests a fiscal year 2005 budget of $2,000 for administrative expenses to facilitate the collaboration of legislative branch entities to improve financial management. LBFMC operating costs are shared among all participating legislative branch entities. The following table presents LBFMC's fiscal years 2004 and 2005 budget estimates. |