123 School Work

MANAGING THE MILITARY BUDGET

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  INTRODUCTION
  
  
       Around March of every year, the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command sends out a call for the current year's Operational and Management Plan. In this call, detailed financial plans are requested in preparation for the upcoming years budget, and emphasis is placed on concentrating on priorities. In the March 02 plan specifically the budget officer asserts the following, "We built FY03 Financial Plan bogeys following COMACCs direction that ACC's #1 priority is to provide combat ready forces to fight the war today. We are also laying the Air Force transformation foundation and face manydecisions driven by national level decisions." (Memorandum For ACC OBAN Managers, 2002). There is also an Air Force Instruction governing Budgeting that outlines who is in charge of the budget and what they are responsible for doing. Despite these formalities and obvious rules to stay within governing policies, it is difficult to imagine why resource advisors managing the Air Force Budget within a particular smaller agency like a squadron, is similar to chasing a chicken with its head cut off. Year after year, squadrons operate on a psuedo budget with money they do not even have, and by the time they really have it, they have exceeded their budgeted amount. This does not match the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force's financial mission, which is to provide worldwide financial operations and management of Air Force resources necessary to defend the United States and protect its interest through aerospace. How can this effectively be accomplished if at the end of the budget year units are scrambling to purchase fuel for needed pilot missions?..