Center's expertise adds value to resource decisions

  • Published
  • By Ed Shannon
  • AFIMSC Public Affairs
Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas --  When Airmen at Cannon AFB, N.M., received keys to rooms in their newly constructed dormitory, they welcomed a better quality of life.

Gone were the days of living in dorms built in 1968 with age-related heat, air and plumbing issues. Now the Airmen reside in modern quarters with individual bedrooms leading to private bathrooms and a common relaxation space.

The last things on the Airmen’s minds were the enormous planning efforts and critical decisions required behind the scenes many months earlier to start the new construction project.

Cannon’s leadership benefitted from the experience of financial analysts assigned to an Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center unit whose mission is to transform innovative ideas into fully defendable resource decisions.

The Air Force Financial Management Center of Expertise at Buckley AFB, Colo., provides approximately 120 major financial analyses annually along with other technical analytical support to major commands and installations, according to Rick Clugston, center director.

“Overall, our mission is to provide decision support capabilities to help customers make the best resourcing decisions,” Clugston said. “We’re here to make every dollar count.”

“A construction project like building our new dormitories improves the quality of life for our Airmen,” said Dusty McEldowney, a senior budget analyst at Cannon. “It’s huge for our base. The analyses and recommendations we receive from the CoE on these kinds of projects leads to the best cost decision, and we use that as a stepping stone for the commander to make the right financial decision.”

Designed in 2005 as the first of the six lanes of transformation for the Air Force Financial Management community, the FM CoE was established to reinstate in a centralized fashion the cost analysis capability that once resided at installations in the 1990s.

Cannon financial analyst Carol Kidd appreciates the support the FM CoE provides.

“Their work is invaluable because their expertise is all together in one place,” Kidd said. “We’d be lost without them.”

Ken Charles, a cost analyst for the 88th Comptroller Squadron at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, said the FM CoE provides a variety of specialized financial economic analyses for decision support for numerous tenant organizations on the installation. Even more importantly, the CoE provides a standard methodology in conducting each type of analysis throughout the Air Force, which was not being accomplished at the installation level.

“They are more than willing to assist any Air Force installation or major command,” said Charles, who listed economic analysis (EA) for military construction (MILCON) projects, cost analysis (CA) for current operations such as the Recycling Program and vehicle management/logistics support, business case analysis (BCA), lease versus buy analysis, and economic impact analysis as types of support the FM CoE has provided to his installation. “They come up with viable recommendations, and the end result is a good support paper or analysis that serves as a tool for the commander to use to make a sound economic decision.”

When the FM CoE opened in 2006, the organization included then-Air Force Lt. Col. Rob Bickel, who helped design the center and served as its first director. Now the center's civilian technical director, Bickel said the types of analyses provided to customers by the organization have changed over the past 11 years, but its mission statement hasn’t shifted.

"Our tasks have changed but the basic charter to support bases with analytical analyses has remained the same," he said.

Today much of the FM CoE's work is involved with economic analyses for military construction (MILCON) projects and business case analyses, Bickel said. Additionally, the organization provides on-the-job training to installations on topics such BCAs, operational and leadership decision support, and host-tenant agreements.

“When they came up with this organization, it was fabulous,” McEldowney said. “At the base level, we struggle with analyses because we don’t have the expertise. “(FM) CoE has experts at one location and they’re involved with the process all the time, which makes it much more efficient than what we could do at the base level.”

When the FM CoE transitioned as part of AFIMSC, Clugston said the organization's mission increased with a broader perspective and the overall mission is even broader than the AFIMSC umbrella.

"AFIMSC tightened up financial processes across the Air Force and enforced compliance with process and procedures resulting in a need for us to establish workload priorities," Clugston said.

The FM CoE not only conducts analyses for installation and mission support functions, it’s customers also include operational mission functions for the 77 Air Force installations, MAJCOMs, Guard, Reserve and combatant commands, he said.

The responsibility to prioritize workload falls in part to Operations Branch Team Chief Marc Ellis, who started as an analyst at the FM CoE in 2007. Ellis brainstorms with the Operations Branch chief, as well as fellow team chief, Kevin Leverson, to assess analytical priorities and assign projects.

"It (prioritization) has become more of a need recently due to increased demand for our analytical work with fewer analysts," Ellis said. "We want to balance our workload to make sure we get the Economic Analyses accomplished in time so that our customers move forward in the funding approval process and are ready to execute when funding becomes available," Ellis said. “While there are key process deadlines and compliance requirements for many of our EAs, the true value of decision support is to get ahead of the decision making process rather than validating decisions previously made.”

Clugston said the organization wants customers to benefit even more from its expertise by reaching out to the FM CoE at the very beginning of the planning process.

“We find that the majority of analyses we provide today validates decisions that have already been made,” he said. “We can provide more value to our customers by getting ahead of the decision. Our input can help leaders make better informed decisions.”

Ellis described many ways the organization provides value to its customers and the Air Force.

“Occasionally, I hear from a team that offered an alternative solution that the customer had not considered, or we will ask questions that better define requirements and alternatives available to decision makers,” he said.

Analysts also add value, Ellis said, by helping customers open internal communication lines with subject matter experts.

“We facilitate communication so that offices and subject matter experts discuss requirements and discover the true needs and benefits,” he said. “Sometimes these discussions don’t occur without us enabling the process and initiating communication that was not previously occurring between experts.”

Ultimately, FM CoE analysts provide ideas and analyses to help customers get the best value for its money.

“Good decision making often means spending more money,” Bickel said. “We’re there to spend money wisely and to get more value out of the money being spent.”

That value is often displayed through the increased quality of life that results from military construction projects like building new dormitories at Cannon AFB.