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Federal Student Aid Financial Management System (FSA FMS)

• Part I: Summary Information and Justification
  • Section A: Overview
  • Section B: Summary of Spending
  • Section D: Performance Information
  • Section F: Enterprise Architecture (EA)
• Part II: Planning, Acquisition And Performance Information
  • Section A: Alternatives Analysis
  • Section B: Risk Management
  • Section C: Cost and Schedule Performance

1. Date of submission: Jul 2, 2008
2. Agency: 018
3. Bureau: 45
4. Name of this Capital Asset: Federal Student Aid Financial Management System (FSA FMS)
5. Unique Project (Investment) Identifier: 018-45-01-01-01-1060-00
6. What kind of investment will this be in FY2010? Mixed Life Cycle
7. What was the first budget year this investment was submitted to OMB? FY2001 or earlier
8. Provide a brief summary and justification for this investment, including a brief description of how this closes in part or in whole an identified agency performance gap: Utilizing Oracle Federal Financials, FMS is the single point of financial information by institution, integrating transactions both from the FSA feeder systems as well as from the Grants Administration and Payment System (GAPS). Accordingly, FMS provides consolidated data to support key management analysis and is the only source within the Department of Education to obtain a comprehensive financial picture of an institution across all FSA programs. FMS consolidates and manages all FSA program transactions from FSA's feeder systems (e.g., FFEL, Direct Loan, Pell, LEAP/SLEAP, and Campus-based transactions). The feeders interface functional transactions to FMS where they are translated to the appropriate accounting. It facilitates reconciliation and internal program management and reporting, and large volumes of payment processing. FMS tracks and manages the payment processing for direct loan originations and consolidations by GAPS and processes refunds to borrowers for overpaid loans. Through highly customized extensions, tightly integrated with the Oracle sub-ledgers, FMS processes large volumes of payments to the lender and guarantee agency communities. It receives electronic invoices and advice of fees payable to Education, performs complex custom validations and reasonability checks to minimize erroneous payments, and processes the transactions through Oracle sub-ledgers to generate Treasury payment files and accounting transactions. The accounting transactions are, in turn, summarized and sent to the FMSS core financial management system for external financial reporting.FMS serves a mission-critical function as a FFEL program front-end payment system, for reconciliation to the FSA feeder systems, for more detailed internal program management reporting, and for additional levels of system controls. However, FMS does not fulfill the central functions of a JFMIP core financial management systems. FMSS, not FMS, produces all external financial reports, such as the financial statements, FACTS I and FACTS II, and the SF224. In addition, FMSS serves as the source for all budget funding transactions (appropriation, apportionment, and allotment data), establishing the budget authority for the Department's financial management systems.
9. Did the Agency's Executive/Investment Committee approve this request? yes
   1. If "yes," what was the date of this approval? Aug 30, 2007
10. Did the Project Manager review this Exhibit? yes
    1. What is the current FAC-P/PM (for civilian agencies) or DAWIA (for defense agencies) certification level of the program/project manager? Senior/Expert/DAWIA-Level 3
11. Has the agency developed and/or promoted cost effective, energy efficient and environmentally sustainable techniques or practices for this project. no
    1. Will this investment include electronic assets (including computers)? yes
    2. Is this investment for new construction or major retrofit of a Federal building or facility? (answer applicable to non-IT assets only) no
       1. If "yes," is an ESPC or UESC being used to help fund this investment? [Not answered]
       2. If "yes," will this investment meet sustainable design principles? [Not answered]
       3. If "yes," is it designed to be 30% more energy efficient than relevant code? [Not answered]
12. Does this investment directly support one of the PMA initiatives? yes
    Expanded E-Government
    Financial Performance
    Eliminating Improper Payments
    1. Briefly and specifically describe for each selected how this asset directly supports the identified initiative(s)? FMS facilitates the secure automated payment processing for all FSA programs. The FMS Form 2000 process for guarantee agencies and the FMS LaRS process for lenders/servicers provide reporting and payment tools to the community. The FMS Form 2000 was awarded the e-Gov award for best in business practice. These initiatives also support the President's Management Agenda (PMA) by reducing cumbersome business processes and reducing cost.
13. Does this investment support a program assessed using the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)? (For more information about the PART, visit www.whitehouse.gov/omb/part.) no
    1. If "yes," does this investment address a weakness found during a PART review? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," what is the name of the PARTed program? [Not answered]
    3. If "yes," what rating did the PART receive? [Not answered]
14. Is this investment for information technology? yes

For information technology investments only:

16. What is the level of the IT Project? (per CIO Council PM Guidance) Level 2
17. In addition to the answer in 11(a), what project management qualifications does the Project Manager have? (per CIO Council PM Guidance) (1) Project manager has been validated as qualified for this investment
18. Is this investment or any project(s) within this investment identified as "high risk" on the Q4-FY 2008 agency high risk report (per OMB Memorandum M-05-23)? yes
19. Is this a financial management system? yes
    1. If "yes," does this investment address a FFMIA compliance area? yes
       1. If "yes," which compliance area: Compliance with all three: Federal accounting standards, USSGL at transaction level, and JFMIP requirements.
       2. If "no," what does it address? [Not answered]
    2. If "yes," please identify the system name(s) and system acronym(s) as reported in the most recent financial systems inventory update required by Circular A-11 section 52 Federal Student Aid Financial Management System (FSA FMS)
20. What is the percentage breakout for the total FY2010 funding request for the following?

21. If this project produces information dissemination products for the public, are these products published to the Internet in conformance with OMB Memorandum 05-04 and included in your agency inventory, schedules and priorities? yes
22. Are the records produced by this investment appropriately scheduled with the National Archives and Records Administration's approval? yes
23. Does this investment directly support one of the GAO High Risk Areas? no

2. Will this project require the agency to hire additional FTE's? no
   1. If "yes", How many and in what year? [Not answered]
3. If the summary of spending has changed from the FY2009 President's budget request, briefly explain those changes: The summary of spending has changed from last year's submission. The details by fiscal year are below. FY09... In comparison to last year's Select Phase request of $8.447m, this request is $1.291m less. This is the net result of the loss of discretionary development funding, the addition of Educate desktop hardware and support costs, and the restructuring and ON-GOING re-compete activies for FMS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FY10... In comparison to last year's Select Phase request of $8.712m, this request is $177k less. This is the net result of Educate desktop hardware and support costs and the restructuring and ON-GOING re-compete activies for FMS.

1. Is this investment included in your agency's target enterprise architecture? yes
   1. If "no," please explain why? [Not answered]
2. Is this investment included in the agency's EA Transition Strategy? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the investment name as identified in the Transition Strategy provided in the agency's most recent annual EA Assessment. Federal Student Aid Financial Management System (FSA FMS)
   2. If "no," please explain why? [Not answered]
3. Is this investment identified in a completed and approved segment architecture? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the six digit code corresponding to the agency segment architecture. The segment architecture codes are maintained by the agency Chief Architect. For detailed guidance regarding segment architecture codes, please refer to http://www.egov.gov/. 206-000

6. Will the application leverage existing components and/or applications across the Government (i.e., USA.Gov, Pay.Gov, etc)? yes
   1. If "yes," please describe. Pay.Gov

1. Did you conduct an alternatives analysis for this investment? yes
   1. If "yes," provide the date the analysis was completed? Jul 2, 2008
   2. If "no," what is the anticipated date this analysis will be completed? [Not answered]
   3. If no analysis is planned, please briefly explain why: [Not answered]

3. Which alternative was selected by the Agency's Executive/Investment Committee and why was it chosen? The "Baseline" choice was selected as the best solution. This is the most appropriate option for Federal Student Aid. This option provides the strongest internal controls and provides consolidated financial reporting for Federal Student Aid programs. Although the other options are possible, they would increase the risk to Federal Student Aid's portfolio by decentralizing the functionality and requiring complex development in other FSA systems.
   1. What year will the investment breakeven? (Specifically, when the budgeted costs savings execced the cumulative costs.) 2021
4. What specific qualitative benefits will be realized? This option will allow Federal Student Aid Operations to maintain consolidated financial reporting while implementing requirements that are expected to strengthen controls, improve customer satisfaction, recognize processing efficiencies, and avoiding/minimizing changes in other FSA systems.

6. Will the selected alternative replace a legacy system in-part or in-whole? no
   1. If "yes," are the migration costs associated with the migration to the selected alternative included in this investment, the legacy investment, or in a separate migration investment? [Not answered]
   2. If "yes," please provide the following information:

1. Does the investment have a Risk Management Plan? yes
   1. If "yes," what is the date of the plan? Jul 2, 2008
   2. Has the Risk Management Plan been significantly changed since last year's submission to OMB? no
   3. If "yes," describe any significant changes: [Not answered]
2. If there currently is no plan, will a plan be developed? [Not answered]
   1. If "yes," what is the planned completion date? [Not answered]
   2. If "no," what is the strategy for managing the risks? [Not answered]
3. Briefly describe how investment risks are reflected in the life cycle cost estimate and investment schedule: A risk assessment has been completed for this investment. Potential risks have been identified and the impact, probability, and mitigation strategy for each risk has been incorporated into the life cycle cost estimate and investment schedule.

1. Does the earned value management system meet the criteria in ANSI/EIA Standard - 748? yes
2. Is the CV% or SV% greater than ± 10%? (CV%= CV/EV x 100; SV%= SV/PV x 100) no
   1. If "yes," was it the? [Not answered]
   2. If "yes," explain the causes of the variance: [Not answered]
   3. If "yes," describe the corrective actions [Not answered]
3. Has the investment re-baselined during the past fiscal year? no
   1. If "yes," when was it approved by the agency head? [Not answered]

Return to OMB Exhibit 300 page