Publish Date : 22-Oct-2015
Today, October 20, 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announces another major milestone in transitioning HUDs financial management and procurement operations to the U.S. Department of Treasurys Administrative Resource Center (ARC). This milestone marks the shift of financial and procurement management functions from HUD to ARC. Although significant work remains, HUD is the first cabinet-level agency to move core financial systems to a Federal Shared Service Provider.
In 2010, HUD reviewed its aging financial systems, and decided to transition from costly legacy systems that did not provide the necessary scale and breadth required to meet todays financial management needs.
In an environment of increasingly restrained resources, HUD realized it needed to move away from inefficient systems that carry a risk of failure and need time-consuming maintenance, said Nani Coloretti, HUD Deputy Secretary. Transitioning to a shared service was the most efficient path forward. By partnering with ARC (Treasury), we gain valuable efficiencies and are adopting certain standards that will allow the Department to engage in better analytical and risk-based management.
"Treasury commends HUDs leadership in partnering with the ARC for its core accounting and financial services," said David Lebryk, Fiscal Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of the Treasury. "Our collaboration with HUD is a significant milestone in achieving greater accuracy, timeliness, and transparency in federal financial management. We also believe that this groundbreaking joint effort will serve as an important learning tool for greater delivery of shared services across government in general."
This transition will enable HUD to focus its 7,500+ workforce on serving the nations housing and community development needs by reducing employees administrative burden, said Joe Hungate, Acting Chief Financial Officer, HUD. Furthermore, it will provide the framework for HUD to comply with federal financial management regulations.
This collaborative relationship between HUD and Treasury is the result of the Federal IT Shared Services Strategy. In May 2012, the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) announced the strategy to agencies for identifying and operating shared services for commodity, support, and mission IT functions. That strategy recommended a phased approach for implementing shared services, (e.g., crawl-walk-run) beginning with intra-agency commodity IT, to allow agencies to gain proficiency, then evolving to support and mission IT areas.
The New Core project is one of the most significant accomplishments for HUD, ARC, and the Administration, said Rafael Diaz, Chief Information Officer, New Core Executive Sponsor, and HUD. This project demonstrates the possibilities and successes when agencies collaborate to achieve a higher goal. It has been exciting to work with these talented teams, and I look forward to building upon these early accomplishments. New Core has opened the door for further IT innovation and business rationalization at HUD.
The transformative project has made significant progress to date. In October 2014, HUD began its phased implementation, migrating travel functions, and in February 2015, its time and attendance functions. Together with the most recent payment processing milestones, HUDs New Core project continues to enhance financial transparency and analytical capabilities, increase regulatory compliance, and improve efficiency through the transition of HUDs core financials and key administrative systems and services.
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