Red Cloud steps up with six new CDFMs

By Jim Cunningham IMCOM-KOREAMarch 25, 2009

Red Cloud steps up with six new CDFMs
Certified Defense Financial Managers (from left) Chong Yol Yi, Myong Meyers, Yong Hui O, Un Hui Kim, Mi Na Chang, and Yun Ok Song look over documents and discuss the resource manaagement needs of the day in the U.S. Army Garrison Red Cloud, South Kor... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

USAG RED CLOUD, South Korea Aca,!" Col. Larry "Pepper" Jackson, U.S. Army Garrison Red Cloud garrison commander, presented his commander's coin for excellence to six employees of Red Cloud's Resource Management Office March 19 for becoming certified defense financial managers.

Mi Na Chang, Un Hui Kim, Myong Meyers, Yong Hui O, Yun Ok Song and Chong Yol Yi completed one of the Army's most involved and difficult courses to reach the highest levels of financial management. To qualify for the course and take the examination, one has to have all the training necessary to be involved in the Army's budget and financial matters.

Those selected to take the course and become CDFMs learn the principles for accountability, which were written into bylaws in the years 1781-1789. The course begins with early American history and lays the ground work for the principles by which CDFMs must abide, Yi said.

"What this course teaches people who perform financial management functions," Yi said, "is where financial mangers come from. We learn legislators are the ones who make the laws concerning government resources. The executive and judicial branches of government administer these laws."

Learning the roots of American history gives students the background for understanding why the principles they learn, during the advanced stages of the course, are there and what is expected of them as CDFMs.

As the students' advance they learn Defense Resource Management, Manpower Management or Personnel Management, and Management controls, and fiscal laws, Yi explained.

"Fiscal laws provide guidance to keep resource managers from illegally spending government funds," Meyers said. "We work at the execution level, we never see the big picture of how and why funding comes to our level. This course teaches us the overall concept of how funding is appropriated. The course also teaches us we are liable when we approve spending."

Managing the large sums of money it takes to run a garrison such as Red Cloud and Area I is the everyday business of the CDFMs. Every dollar spent in Area I is accounted for by CDFMs working in RM; from salaries to projects, large and small.

"People always come to us and ask for this or that," Yi said. "When we spend government money we record all the expenditures, commitments, and obligations. The accounting system contains thousands of records, and each analyst has a set of ledgers and accounts to show how the money is spent."

The CDFM course trains students how to project budget needs into the future as well as how to spend the budgets in hand for current fiscal years. It is comprehensive training, which prepares CDFMs for what fate may come to garrison life both present and future, Yi explained.

"This course is comprehensive training for Department of Defense financial managers," Yi said. "It makes financial managers competent."