The process of filing annual financial disclosure forms is one that many senior federal executives scorn. But if an effort at the Agriculture Department takes off, the process could get at least a little easier.
John Surina, director of USDA's Office of Ethics, has spearheaded an effort to put financial disclosure forms for federal employees online. Filling out the forms is an onerous task involving listing certain assets, debts, gifts, outside activities, stock and bond trades, rental property and more. To make things worse, information on the forms must be updated every year.
Several attempts have been made to make the process easier, but most have failed because they depend on specific hardware and software and are not a one-size-fits all answer, Surina said. Nevertheless, he said, "there is a better and cheaper alternative."
There are two types of financial disclosure reports, the SF-278 and the OGE-450. The first is for senior executives and political appointees and is "much maligned," Surina said, due to its length and difficulty. SF-278s must be filed when employees first arrive on the job, once a year while on the job, and when they leave. Employees at the GS-15 level who work in jobs where conflicting financial interests might be an issue, such as those in contracting, auditing or investigations, must file the OGE-450, which Surina described as "slightly less intrusive."
At USDA, 17,650 employees scattered all over the world have to file financial disclosure forms. Surina said the department's first attempt to make the task less burdensome involved putting downloadable files on a Web page. But only the truly computer literate could figure that out, Surina said.
The best solution was to put the forms on the Internet, so that everyone around the world could complete them online. The only problem, Surina said, was that "I knew the computer security issue would petrify people."
As luck would have it, USDA happens to run the National Finance Center, which provides centralized and automated payroll, personnel, property management, budget and accounting services not just for the Agriculture Department but dozens of other agencies as well. NFC also administers the Thrift Savings Plan. With such sensitive information in its control, the NFC has highly secure computers, platforms and telecommunications systems.
"It was a marriage made in heaven," Surina said. "We now had a good, easy means of putting the forms online, and it was not as hostile as spreadsheets." The NFC agreed to develop the online platform because the center views financial disclosure forms as another service it can offer customers, Surina explained.
NFC now allows USDA employees to create password-protected Web pages on which they can fill out disclosure forms and post transactions as they occur to keep their forms up to date. The system has fill-in-the-blank boxes for text entries and drag-down menus for selecting standardized entries. Once a form is completed, it can simply be updated, rather than filled out in full every year. Since the system is Internet-based, users can access the forms from their office or home computers, or anywhere in the world with an Internet connection.
While users still must print, sign and mail the forms in, NFC is working on a number of alternatives for digital signatures. "That's the next step," Surina said.
In addition to electronic filing, USDA wants to broaden its customer base by offering the service to other agencies.
"We would like to offer it governmentwide so other agencies don't go and develop their own systems," Surina said. "And NFC would like to sweeten the package of services they offer to agencies, too." More than 90,000 federal employees have already set up personal Web pages at NFC to manage financial information. For now, however, the disclosure form service is only available in a pilot project at USDA.
The ethics community has been receptive to putting disclosure forms online, but the Office of Government Ethics must approve the new system before USDA can offer it to other agencies.
According to Surina, NFC's system may be the first authorized for electronic filing with the digital signature and encryption guidelines being developed by the Office of Management and Budget.
The USDA forms are online at www.usda.gov/ethics/forms.