Working Capital Fund –June 2022

June 09, 2022

On Thursday, June 9, the National Academy of Public Administration and Grant Thornton hosted a Working Capital Fund Symposium on the impact of the COVID pandemic and other existential threats on Working Capital Fund operations and successful mitigation strategies.

​The quarterly WCF Symposium aims to develop discussions between a relatively new operation and one or more established operations. Agency leaders share their insights to implement and sustain Working Capital Funds.

Recurring Moderators and Presenters:

Holden Hoofnagel, (WCF Chairman) serves as Director of the Office of the Secretary Financial Management, Department of Commerce (DOC). He is responsible for the management of the Office of the Secretary budgetary functions including development and oversight of the budget submissions to the Department, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Congress.​

Tony Scardino, Managing Principal, Grant Thornton, Tony Scardino is a Managing Principal in Grant Thornton’s Public Sector Advisory practice, where he leads a group of Former Government Executives (FGEs) that leverages the experience and expertise of the firm’s cadre of FGEs to help agencies work across the C-suite to improve mission outcomes, provide excellent service, and effectively steward taxpayer dollars.

The Symposium featured a moderated roundtable discussion with guest speakers including:

• Lisle Hannah, Director OFEQ, Department of Commerce, Lisle Hannah is the Director of the Office of Facilities and Environmental Quality (OFEQ) and serves as the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administration at the Department of Commerce. As Acting DASA, she supports administrative and management functions to meet and enhance mission support across DOC in the realm of Office of Human Resource Management, Performance Excellence, Office of Privacy and Open Government, Office of Civil Rights and OFEQ.
  
• John Johnson, Director of Cost Allocation, Food and Drug Administration, John Andrew Johnson serves as the Director of the Cost Allocation and Recovery Services team within the Office of Operations at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Currently he is responsible for managing the FDA’s first-ever Working Capital Fund, valued at over $600 million dollars. John has been with the FDA since 2008 and with the Federal government since 2005.
• Everett Whiteley, Chief, Budget Division, Census Bureau, Everett Whiteley has served as the Chief, Budget Division at the Census Bureau since 2016. In this position he is responsible for the entire lifecycle of each fiscal year’s budget, including formulation of budget requests, defense of those budget requests to the Department of Commerce (DOC), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the Congress, and execution of appropriations once enacted. Prior to his current role, Everett served as Assistant Division Chief for Budget Operating and Planning. In that role he oversaw the formulation of the Census Bureau's annual budget submissions, as well as budget execution for the 2020 Census, ACS, Geographic Support, and the CEDCaP Program.

In the first part of the discussion, the panelists shared their experiences from the view of each specific agency. The WCFs of the Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau, and the Food and Drug Administration were presented by each respective panelist. The presentations included the impact of the pandemic on each WCF.

In the second part of the event, the panelists further discussed their reactions to the pandemic as well as other existential threats. This included discussion of the following:

• Adjustments that were made to address these challenges
• Advantages and disadvantages that are distinct to WCFs in dealing with existential threats, like COVID
• Efforts that these departments and agencies are taking to prepare for future threats.

Following the roundtable discussion, the Q&A session focused on lessons learned from the pandemic in more detail and how these lessons will be applied in the future.