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From: Armor Officer
Date: 10 Aug 2001
Time: 14:13:12
The accounting in the miltary is horrible- everyone knows that. No auditor will come in and even take a look at it because they don't know where to start. The number of programs, combined with untrained ACCOUNTANTS (why they take tankers/infantry/officers in general from the field and try and make them accountants of multi-million dollar programs is beyond me) creates a system that is unstable at best. The POM process is also unique to the military. It takes a five year plan (some nice Sovietology here) and tries to figure out what the finances are going to look like in the future. That is possible in a business, where cash inflow is based upon sales and productivity. You can plan off current sales, and then adjust the yearly budget as the business grows or shrinks. That simply isn't the case with the military budget. There are too many external factors involved in the process to go beyond two years in my opinion. A COS can say, hey we need $10M for new headgear in 2001, but that money was never budgeted for in the POM, so it has to come out of another account because there is a finite of cash in the bank. When the cash runs out, like it usually does, you see a bunch of 4 stars on the hill asking for supplemental funds to continue operations and maintenance, etc. . Because the military budget is driven by Congress and the President, a five year plan simply doesn't work. Political factors (NMD, transformation, contigency ops, war, etc...) blows holes in the budget every year. This kind of uncertainity does not happen in the business world (usually). The business world is much more stable than the military community. This is true for the financial side of the coin as well as the personnel side. Just a few thoughts. Flame away.