Number Crunching

Since Oct. 1 the Pentagon comptroller's office has been using a new weapon in the fight to get its arms around the prickly problem of managing the Defense Department's finances. The Electronic Funds Distribution (EFD) system will replace many of the comptroller's stovepiped systems now in use. According to an Aug. 23 memo from the comptroller's shop that was just made publicly available:

The goal of the EFD system is to provide visibility, auditability, and traceability of appropriated funds distributed within DOD and to interface with components' funds distribution systems. The EFD system will distribute and manage budget authority for defense-wide military departments and appropriations using a web-based application. Specifically, the capabilities of the EFD system include: distributing budget authority to the components, managing recissions and continuing resolutions, and reprogramming/transferring budget authority as needed to support changes in funding priorities throughout the year.

Last week, Inside the Pentagon explained some of the problems the comptroller's shop is having in tracking where the dollars go and how it won't meet a Nov. 15 deadline for what was to be the first audit of the military's -- the Marine Corps in this case -- books. That story is here.