KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany –
Money makes the world go round, and no one in the 405th Army Field Support Brigade knows this better than the brigade’s resource management team.
The 405th AFSB’s Resource Management Office, also known as S8, conducted a two-day Budget Working Group at the Workplace Development Center on Sembach Kaserne in Kaiserslautern, Germany, Oct. 18-19.
The main purpose of the Budget Working Group – which included more than two dozen budget and program analysts within brigade’s footprint stationed in four countries across Europe – was to discuss the fiscal year 2022 Funding Directive, limitations and any scheduled changes from a funds execution perspective.
“We covered multiple subjects during the two-day session,” said Barbara Budai, the 405th AFSB’s S8 chief. “Some of the subjects we discussed included Army audits, customer funds, Speed Pay, Defense Travel System, Transportation Account Codes and the FY22 Work Breakdown Structure, which is how we execute funds.”
“I wanted to focus on the complexities and the communication between the brigade’s S8 office and the analysts assigned to our subordinate battalions, logistics readiness centers and base operations directorates,” Budai said.
Another area discussed by the working group was Acquisition Cross Servicing Agreements, said Budai.
“We used these agreements during DEFENDER-Europe 21 and when contracting with NATO allies such as the NATO Support and Procurement Agency in Capellen, Luxembourg,” she said.
The financial management analysts assigned to the 405th AFSB are a “dedicated and hard working group of professionals,” said Budai.
“Professionals with top notch technical skills – they perform complex financial transactions on a daily basis in support of the 405th AFSB’s multiple missions and lines of effort,” she said.
The 405th AFSB was the second of seven brigade’s to close out all of its FY21 financial requirements and actions in September and was released early by U.S. Army Sustainment Command.
In FY21 the 405th AFSB’s S8 team executed $164 million in addition to $13 million in customer funds, to include closing out all DEFENDER-Europe 21 actions. The team expects to execute about $200 million in FY22.
The 405th AFSB is assigned to ASC and under the operational control of the 21st Theater Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa. The brigade is headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. Forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging the U.S. Army Materiel Command materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website at www.afsbeurope.army.mil and the official Facebook site at www.facebook.com/405thAFSB.