Performance and Accountability Report — Fiscal Year 1999 (NUREG-1542, Volume 5)

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Publication Information

Date Published: November 1999

Resource Management and Support Staff
Office of the Chief Financial Officer
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

Availability Notice

A Message from the Chairman

Chairman

I am pleased to present the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's I(NRC) Accountability and Performance Report for fiscal year (FY) 1999. This report reflects the NRC's continued commitment to employ sound management strategies for regulating the nation's use of nuclear materials.

An integrated planning, budgeting, and performance management process remains the NRC's primary tool for advancing the implementation of performance management in the agency and also for meeting the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act. This process provides a discipline whereby managers determine program direction based on previously established goals and measures of performance. NRC's triennial update of its strategic plan, which will describe the context for our regulatory responsibilities, reflects this effort. The plan is near completion and will be submitted to Congress in September 2000.

Consistent with our efforts to streamline reporting, we have included the FY 1999 Performance Report in this Accountability Report. This is the first annual performance report required for Federal agencies by the Government Performance and Results Act. The Performance Report allows comparison of the NRC's FY 1999 actual performance with the FY 1999 performance goals. These performance goals were provided in the revised Performance Plan for FY 1999, which was published in the NRC's Budget Estimates and Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2000. In FY 1999, we again achieved our performance goals for protecting public health and safety, and the environment.

I am also pleased to announce that the agency obtained its sixth consecutive unqualified financial statement audit opinion. This opinion was possible because of the hard work and cooperation among the auditors, financial staff, and agency personnel. However, much work still must be completed in order to comply fully with Federal accounting and reporting standards. The staff is working to meet these challenges.

The NRC also evaluated its management control and financial management systems for FY 1999 as required by the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act of 1982. The results of this evaluation provided reasonable assurance that the NRC achieved the objectives of this Act. No material non-conformances with government-wide requirements in the NRC's existing financial management systems were identified. The NRC also evaluated its financial management systems for compliance with applicable Federal requirements and accounting standards as required by the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996. This evaluation disclosed that the NRC's major financial management systems were in overall compliance with this Act except for (1) the failure to achieve full implementation of the Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standard Number 4, Managerial Cost Accounting Concepts and Standards for the Federal Government, (2) the inability of the agency's financial systems to aggregate payroll transactions to the strategic arena level, and (3) the inability of the Treasury's Financial Management Service (FMS) to test business continuity plans for the NRC core accounting system, which is provided to the NRC through a Memorandum of Understanding with the FMS. The current payroll system has been modified to address the second weakness for FY 2000. The audit report on the agency's financial statements and response, provided at the end of this report, contains a discussion of the other weaknesses and NRC's corrective action plans to gain full compliance with the Act.

Although some work remains, the NRC continues to demonstrate success in accomplishment of its mission through sound program and fiscal management. The issuance of this fifth annual Accountability and Performance Report confirms our commitment to provide accountability for agency programs and financial management.

Chairman Signature

Richard A. Meserve
Chairman
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

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