The Chief Financial Officer and Federal Financial Reform Act of 1990 (Public Law 101–576), or CFO Act, signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on November 15, 1990, is a United States federal law intended to improve the government's financial management, outlining standards of financial performance and disclosure. Among other measures, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was given greater authority over federal financial management. For each of 24 federal departments and agencies, the position of chief financial officer was created. In accordance with the CFO Act, each agency or department vests its financial management functions in its chief financial officer.
The Act created a new position in the OMB, the Deputy Director for Management, who is the government's chief financial management official. It also created a new sub-division of the OMB, the Office of Federal Financial Management (OFFM), to carry out governmentwide financial management responsibilities. The OFFM's chief officer was designated as the newly-created Controller position. Both the Deputy Director for Management and the Controller are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.
The Committee on Government Reform oversees the management and infrastructure of the federal agencies, including those covered by the CFO Act.
The CFO Act also established the CFO Council, consisting of the CFOs and Deputy CFOs of the largest federal agencies and senior officials of OMB and Treasury.
For a discussion of the history and motivation underlying the CFO Act - with particular emphasis on the difficulties the U.S. Department of Defense has experienced attempting to comply with the financial-statement reporting requirements of the Act - see "Financial Accountability at the DOD: Reviewing the Bidding," published in the July 2009 issue of the Defense Acquisition Review Journal.
The original author of the legislation was Joseph J. DioGuardi, the first certified public accountant elected to Congress, who served in the House of Representatives representing the 20th Congressional district of New York from 1985 to 1989.
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