Department of Veterans Affairs, Assistant Secretary for Management

Department/Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs

Position:

Assistant Secretary for Management

Executive Schedule: Executive Level IV - Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation

Major Responsibilities:

Manage $94 billon budget
Oversee financial policy, systems and operations
Serve as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Acquisition Officer

Key Competencies and Preferred Qualifications:

Executive experience in public or private sector
Military background
Prior CFO experience

Insight:

The Assistant Secretary for Management serves as the Veterans Affairs Department's chief financial officer, overseeing a budget of more than $93 billion to provide benefits, health care and memorial services for the nation's 25 million veterans. As one long-time VA budget officer said in a 2002 interview, "budget seems to drive everything."

Mark Catlett entered the VA career ranks in 1976, holding the agency's top financial post from 1993-1998. Catlett said that preparing a budget forces the Executive Branch to "put down on a piece of paper and commit to what they're going to accomplish in the next year."

The VA's CFO develops the financial policy to allow the agency to provide a variety of services to veterans, from education benefits to burial. Finding ways to streamline unwieldy operations without sacrificing the quality of care is a major challenge for the management assistant secretary, who also serves as the agency's chief acquisitions officer. Catlett said it can be difficult to convince VA staff to consider cheaper alternatives for medical supplies and other purchases, but procurement reform frees up funds for better uses. "The better we buy, as long as we don't compromise quality, the more efficiently we buy, means there's more resources for staffing, which is still our primary resource in providing health care," he said. "Sixty percent of our costs is payroll. We have to squeeze as much as we can out of the supply side, the non-payroll side, so that we can hire more physicians and nurses to provide care."

Like any CFO, the VA's finance official must justify each item in the budget to a board of directors - Congress. Catlett's successor, William H. Campbell, found that task particularly daunting as federal agencies adjusted to the new management expectations of President George W. Bush's President's Management Agenda (PMA). The VA tried to secure funding for a PMA initiative to encourage competitive contracting and attempted to rework its budget to reflect the performance-based metrics favored under the PMA. Capitol Hill appropriators rejected both attempts, and Campbell told Government Executive in 2004 that going "0 for 2" with Congress left him unsure how to proceed.

Despite the friction with Congress, the VA's CFO tends not to play a political role. Catlett said that although he was initially reluctant to trade in his career post for the appointment, he had no trouble transitioning between career and political roles. He even juggled the two hats at the same time, holding the career title of principal deputy assistant for management while serving as the acting assistant secretary during both the Clinton and Bush transitions. "The VA is a very, very flat organization. There's not much hierarchy there. And while I was in the political position, I didn't see my job a whole lot different than ... as a careerist trying to do the same thing."

Catlett said a candidate needs two traits to do the job effectively: passion and persistence. "I think you have to have passion for your mission, for what you want to - and I say mission, or what you want to accomplish. ... And then persistence. Like any bureaucracy, I think either public or private, there's a lot of competing interests. And you have to stick to it, to see through the things that you want to bring about."

The next assistant secretary for management of the VA will need those qualities in extra measure since, as Catlett says, the budget drives everything. The financial and human toll of two wars, compounded by the economic crisis, has increased the number of veterans seeking care and strained the resources available to provide that care.

Key Relationships – Within the Government:

Secretary and Deputy Secretary
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Management
Under Secretaries of Health, Benefits and Memorial Affairs
OMB Deputy Director for Management
Controller, Office of Federal Financial Management
OMB Budget division staffer assigned to agency
Government Accountability Office
Chief Financial Officers Council
Administrator, Financial Management Services, U.S. Department of Treasury
Administrator, Financial System Integration Office, General Services Administration

Organizational Chart

Key Relationships – Outside the Government:

Staff of Congressional authorizing and appropriations committees as well as the government oversight and reform committees
Association of Government Accountants
Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board
Independent public accounting firm assigned to the agency
Suppliers and contractors, including pharmaceutical, medical and construction

Nomination Referred to:

Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs

Current Position Profile:

1. W. Todd Grams (Acting). Former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Chief Financial Officer of the Internal Revenue Service.

Recent Position Profiles:

2. Robert J. Henke, M.P.A. (Confirmed 2005). Former principal deputy to the Department of Defense comptroller. Former Senate Defense Appropriations staff member. Completed GE's Financial Management Program. Navy reserve officer who served during Operation Desert Storm.

3. William H. Campbell, M.S. (2002 - 2004) Formed director of the Federal CFO Advisory Services practice at KPMG LLP. CFO for the U.S. Coast Guard and for Amtrak. Chief engineer and deputy commander for the Naval Supply Systems Command.

4. Mark Catlett (1993-1998). Served in an acting capacity during both the Clinton and Bush transitions. Principal deputy assistant secretary for management and deputy assistant secretary for budget. Worked in the VA's budget operations since joining the agency in 1976.