SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- As an installation budget officer at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, Maj. Brian Hoffman craved information to help him excel on the job. Becoming AFIMSC’s deputy of budget operations last July gave him the opportunity to feed that craving for other installation budget officers across the Air Force.
Hoffman led AFIMSC’s first budget officer summit April 3-5 in San Antonio with more than 90 finance leaders from around the world in attendance.
“I personally have been waiting for this for a long time,” said Hoffman. “At Spangdahlem, I pulled great ideas from other budget officers in Europe. This is on a much greater scale.”
The role of a budget officer is valuable and challenging, according to Col. Quy Nguyen, AFIMSC Financial Management Division branch chief.
“Budget officers work for the Wing commanders and must integrate requirements across their installation and communicate them so that we at AFIMSC can advocate for funding,” Nguyen said. “Having them here and sharing information opens a dialogue, increases understanding and results in credibility for the enterprise.”
Felix Saenz, AFIMSC budget analyst for Air Force Materiel Command and Air Mobility Command met several budget officers he’s only worked with by phone and email.
“It’s a big plus to put a face with a name,” he said. “I’ve worked with some of the budget officers for a couple of years, but this was my first time to meet them in person. There is nothing better than having one-on-one, face-to- face discussions.”
One of those budget officers is Joanne Dunleavy from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey.
“I work with Felix all the time,” Dunleavy said, “and I enjoyed learning from the functional perspective. Sometimes we think, ‘Why are they doing it this way?’ So to learn from their perspective helps put the picture together. Though we may not agree, it makes more sense to me hearing their perspective.
Capt. Nakeshia Dean and 2nd Lt. Trinh Tran left the workshop armed with a better understanding of AFIMSC and how the inputs they provide throughout the year contribute to the overall funding plan.
A budget officer at Yokota AB, Japan, Dean said she is intrigued to see how the execution plan is built and followed.
“We used to get a bogey and had to work within it,” she said. “I learned at the conference that the execution plan is focused on our needs and requirements. Knowing that how well we obligate our funding gives credibility to the Air Force makes me want to push my units even more to have requirements ready to go.”
As the deputy budget officer at Kadena AB, Japan, Tran was very interested to see the strategic level perspective and compare it to what he sees in his day-to-day duties.
“The information we received will help me communicate much better in terms of having good budget execution,” he said.
Representatives from various AFIMSC primary subordinate units and functions shared how they are involved in the budget process, which was extremely useful information according to Tran.
“The functional briefings really stood out for me,” he said. “As I listened to presenters, it clicked that they also speak to the functional at the base level for requirements ahead of when the call for requirements from our office goes out. I did not know that until yesterday.”
Hoffman said he was very pleased being able to meet the goals for the conference, which included focused training and better mutual understanding.
“It was important to have this summit to help all of us improve – not just the budget officers – but my team and I also received a good insight of the installations’ perspective,” he said. “We have a better mutual understanding about what drives workloads and budget taskers. I think we knocked it out of the park.”