Finance tops USAFE metrics 2 years running

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf
  • 65th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
LAJES FIELD, Azores, Portugal --  The 65th Comptroller Flight has done it again. They are the top performers in U.S. Air Forces Europe for the second year in a row in metrics that are tracked monthly.

"Out of the eight bases in USAFE for Fiscal Year 14, we totaled 96 out of 100 points," said 2nd Lt. Eric Artman, 65th CPTF financial services officer.  "We finished in the top 3 of USAFE, 15 out of 24 months, including six first place finishes in that time span."

There is a combination of metrics that are tracked for all of the comptroller squadrons across USAFE and include dormant obligations, interest penalty payments, outstanding travel orders, aged commitments, Case Management System cases, voucher balancing, Government Travel Card delinquencies, Station Gain processing and travel rejects.

"Many will say that we are such a small base so it is expected," Artman said. "However, we have the same manning per population as the other bases, so it is actually pretty significant that we are able to accomplish the same tasks with fewer people. It speaks highly of the knowledge and work ethic of all members of the flight."

Lajes may be small, but that doesn't mean that some challenges that other bases face doesn't affect them.

"Obviously, sequestration was a big challenge during 2013. Since FY13, Lajes has felt the impact of sequestration with budget cuts of $3.8 million, which is a huge impact for a respectively small base," said 1st Lt. Jacobb Rakes, 65th CPTF budget officer. "This forced our Financial Analysis Section to coordinate with the rest of the base to figure out how we are going to meet our mission with fewer resources than before. Also a challenge in recent years has been the implementation of Financial Improvement Audit Readiness, where Congress has mandated that the Department of Defense become audit compliant. This has forced us to modify several of our processes for the FIAR while still meeting the mission."

While sequestration was a DoD-wide issue, there are some challenges that are Lajes specific.

"One challenge unique to Lajes is we are the only dependent restricted tour in USAFE, making it hard to obtain supporting documentation for audits and military pay," Rakes said. "We also are the furthest west in the major command, meaning that we have to be flexible and plan ahead. With Lajes being a year-long tour this increases the amount of Permanent Change of Stations, which in turn increases the workload for in- and out-processing and makes it vital to have continuity."

Despite all the challenges, the accomplishment and numbers show that the team at Lajes knows how to combat them.

"The most successful way we have found (to overcome these challenges) is to be proactive," Rakes said. "By understanding member specific situations and actually seeking out the member before they arrive, it allows us to inform them of any documents that will be required for in-processing. In terms of operating with a restricted budget, we had to make tough decisions to reduce funding to various functions around base and allocate our budget to more of a mission focus. We have also gathered ideas and innovations from our brilliant Airmen around the base to find areas that we can do things better and efficiently in order to save money."

While at large bases, the amount of work a comptroller office handles can get lost in the numbers, but Artman says that is not the case here.

"The members of CPTF take their duties seriously and personally," Artman said. "We're a small community; we hear about and see the impact of the quality of our work. We know what we contribute to the mission because we see it every day."

This attitude and commitment to the mission are some of the reasons the flight has topped the metrics again.

"We take care of the mission and focus on doing the job right," said Maj. Jason Bean, 65th CPTF commander. "To us it is the Wing's mission and its members, first and foremost. This lets the metrics fall into place and it is quite an honor to be able to say that we were the best in USAFE for 2 straight years."