New Fiscal Goals in Place for Agencies to Maintain Public Trust During Pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government has had to restructure how it handles finances and resources for the American people.

Tim Gribben, Commissioner of the Department of the Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service, wrote in the 2020 Annual Fiscal Service Letter to Chief Financial Officers, “Although the pandemic has radically changed our daily lives… I have heard concerns of federal agencies, especially about the burden placed on their operations during these challenging times.”

In 2018, the Future of Federal Financial Management project set forth to ensure that the government was an efficient steward of its financial resources, provided accurate financial information, and enabled modern, inclusive, seamless, and secure financial interactions with the American people.

Now that the government is facing the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, “We are aligning our efforts to meet larger, more challenging goals. We will work with agencies to make the government’s financial services more convenient, inclusive, and efficient for the American public,” Gribben wrote in the annual letter.

The first goal for fiscal year 2021 is to transform the customer experience- mainly by switching paper transactions to digital. Next, the goal is to deliver efficient services, mainly through single purpose applications that create end-to-end solutions tailored to the needs of federal agencies. The final goal is to increase data available for new insights through websites that allow the public to explore and analyze the fiscal operations of the U.S. government.