What were some of the highlights of 2025 for your group?
We successfully closed our fiscal year 2021 incurred cost audit. This was the first audit done of the Lab by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, or DCAA in decades. The DOE Office of Inspector General contracted with DCAA to perform the audit. This audit took three years to do. It was a lot of details, a lot of questions, and a lot of trying to learn about the business of the Lab. They had some minor recommendations that we’ll incorporate into the future, but nothing major.
And now they are starting the FY22 and FY23 audits, so hopefully they’ll go faster than three years. Their plan is to get it done by March of this year.
Prior to the DCAA’s audit, we employed a cooperative audit approach, where DOE relied on internal audit work for reviewing the Lab’s operations. Going forward, the DCAA annual audit will be the approach that is used.
Another key accomplishment was transitioning banks. We had to transition to a new bank, which is a really significant undertaking because we need to establish new wires, payments, records, and the links to our Lab financial system. We took advantage of this change to enable us to make more online payments and engage in online activities, which has been a benefit as we save time and money.
What are you looking forward to in 2026?
We are working to expand our online reporting capabilities. We recently put our annual report into an online format. We are trying to convert that into a report that can be reviewed and updated monthly. That’s something important to our stakeholders, and it helps when you closely monitor funding.
We also completed a Procurement Evaluation and Re-engineering Team, or PERT review, last year. It is supposed to be every six years or so, but this time frame was more like seven years. It is an opportunity for DOE and our peers to do a deep dive into our purchasing system. The review offers recommendations and insights into how we can enhance our acquisition process; we will be implementing some of these recommendations in 2026.
Is part of the job of the OCFO to plan for uncertainty? Will that change this year?
We work with our Lab leadership team to identify the level of risk and uncertainty with which the leadership team is comfortable operating.
We’ve been monitoring our funding closely because it has been uncertain what the new administration’s priorities will be and how they will translate into funding for the Lab. The budget provides us with direction and ensures that the work we plan to do is in alignment with DOE needs. Since the final budgets for this year have not been published, this leads to increased uncertainty.
We have increased the contingency amount in our indirect budget so that we can adjust as we learn more about what DOE wants us to do. We begin with a larger contingency at the start of the fiscal year, and then, as we learn more about the actual work that will be done this year, we will adjust those contingencies until we have a final FY26 budget. It also provides valuable insights into what to expect in FY27 and FY28 as well.
We had to be very agile this last year.
How are you working within the OFCO team to be more agile?
We foster an attitude of continuous improvement through continuous learning. We’ve been using Six Sigma to improve efficiency and are piloting different ways to share knowledge throughout the team. We are exploring how AI can provide solutions or new opportunities. I was working on a spreadsheet today, and I asked Gemini to add some additional information charts to the spreadsheet, and it did it. I was surprised but delighted at the result.
What can each of us do to help your team help the Lab?
Partnership is critical, so work with us to figure out solutions. Sometimes, there are a lot of rules that come with being federally funded, and we may have to say no to the initial request, but work with us. Perhaps we can approach the issue from a different angle. Help us understand what those priorities are and partner with us to get to solutions.
