Navigating the budget process for any government system must be a daunting task, let alone making any significant change, but it appears it can be done.

Each year the Redstone-Huntsville Chapter of the Association of the United States Army recognizes local Department of the Army civilians who have demonstrated exceptional performance as members of the Army team.

Clifford Crivello was nominated for one such award for putting his mark on the foreign military sales (FMS) financial world.

Crivello, resource manager for the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC), made a suggestion to a $100 million Army system and forged a way ahead on how to implement it.

Crivello led the successful implementation of the FMS administrative fund direct-change labor initiative for the entire FMS enterprise that began in 2014 and went live in 2017.

This capstone event resulted in the sustained multi-year coordinated effort across all levels of the Army to include the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller, Department of Defense Comptroller’s Office, Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), Army Budget Office, Army Materiel Command (AMC), Army Training and Doctrine Command, Army Medical Command, and each Life Cycle Management Command under AMC.

The FMS administrative funds are managed by USASAC on behalf of AMC, and executed in the General Fund Enterprise Business System, the Army’s financial system of record, on a reimbursable basis.

The reimbursable process in the past has caused up to a 65-day lag in funds reporting, which caused the FMS Enterprise to report execution of the process late to its Army FMS customers and DoD proponents.

However, based on Crivello’s exhaustive research, he briefed AMC and DSCA officials about changing the current reimbursable process being used to execute FMS payroll, and demonstrated it would have no effect on the Army’s ability to accurately record and report end-strength.

The briefing initiated the needed change in the ability to directly charge labor and work with the Office of Management and Budget and Treasury Department, and to authorize transfers within the FMS Trust Fund.

Crivello went on to remark that the “proposed changes will also improve Army audit-ability of [reimbursable] fund execution.”

Through his outstanding coordination with higher headquarters, Crivello was able to get the approvals for fixing a slow and confusing system, thus bringing about much needed change.

In October 2017, a four-day summit was held at the USASAC headquarters with over 110 FMS claimants.

The summit explained the process of implementation and paved the way to provide full, active, live, accounting transparency to the AMC command staff and all of the claimants.

“Allowing FMS labor to be charged directly to the fund source will provide the security assistance community with improved accountability of foreign country funds entrusted to the U.S. Army,” Crivello said at the summit.

“This direct charge effort was implemented successfully with zero financial accounting downtime, enhancing the Army’s mission support to its foreign customers and reminding customers that the Army’s reputation as an employer of the best civilian workforce in the world holds true,” said Col. Phillip Chambers, USASAC chief of staff and Crivello’s supervisor, stated.

Additionally, the material improvements made during the implementation of direct charge by the Army and foreign claimants directly led to a 100 percent success rate across the FMS Enterprise during the year end close of the fund.

“Crivello’s efforts led directly to the full accountability of FMS administrative funding down to the penny. He has put his mark on the FMS financial world that will reap benefits for years to come,” Chambers noted.