Financial Management

In FY 1995 and 1996 the Agency's appropriation was $22.9 million. With no increase in funding for FY 1996, the Agency "lost" nearly half a million dollars in purchasing power because of increases in military and civilian salaries, and other fixed cost increases such as facilities costs, office rental, and simple inflation.

Through creative management, the Agency continued to meet its mandated missions of registering men and maintained an adequate state of readiness and operational effectiveness.

A few new management programs were particularly effective in FY 1996, notably, the conversion to optical scanning of some registration cards in place of 100-percent manual keying. This program cut processing time and allowed for a reduction in authorized positions. As additional Agency forms are converted to documents that can be scanned, additional savings should be possible.

A second area in which savings were realized was the reduction in the Worker's Compensation payments to the Department of Labor. In addition, numerous small modifications and beneficial changes were made in dozens of procedures that contributed to reduced expenses.

The Selective Service System faces the same dilemma as other small agencies. It must work under the 70/30 rule, whereby nearly 70 percent of the budget is devoted to personnel compensation and related costs. The remaining 30 percent applies to all other operational expenses. Expenses at SSS are as varied as postage, printing, facility rental, U.S. Postal Service reimbursements for handling registrations, and operation of the Data Management Center's hardware and software systems. There is little or no discretionary funding available to meet rising service and technology costs. Staying current with affordable technology changes is an ever-continuing management problem.