KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany –
For the 405th Army Field Support Brigade, no mission can be completed without money and a team of dedicated and professional resource management budget analysts and program analysts.
Suleymanu Muhammadou is the 405th AFSB’s director of resource management (S-8). He and his team of about a dozen RM experts located in four countries across Europe manage the budget for the brigade headquarters, eight Logistics Readiness Centers and four Army Field Support Battalions, plus more. And according to Muhammadou, it really gets busy at the end of the fiscal year, especially this year.
“On average, the operating budget for the LRCs, and this is just a rough estimate, is around $25 million a year,” Muhammadou said. “For the battalions and their Army Prepositioned Stocks-2 sites, the operating budget during a normal fiscal year is around $220 to $240 million.”
“That is just the steady state missions, but with our involvement supporting current operations in Europe, we have seen our budget explode to the tune of almost $460 million this year, overall,” he said.
And Muhammadou and his team of RM experts aren’t done spending yet. In fact, it’s crunch time as the end of the fiscal year quickly approaches.
“The fiscal year begins October 1st and ends September 30th,” said Muhammadou. “Before September 30 we must execute all remaining FY23 funds and meet all critical deadlines in the year-end closeout process imposed by Army Sustainment Command. We must ensure all remaining funds are spent on bona fide requirements or returned to Army Sustainment Command.”
“Simply put, we must have all financial transactions reconciled and accounted for by September 30, midnight, Eastern Standard Time,” he said.
This entails running multiple reports daily, ensuring all open transactions are tracked to the item level, and working with multiple stakeholders – multiple contracting offices across the theater, such as the 409th Contracting Support Brigade in Germany and additional contracting offices in the Netherlands and Italy, for example.
“If we have a contract action that's out there that's pending award, we have to know exactly when that contract is going to be awarded and we have to follow through with the contracting agent to make sure it’s awarded on time so that we can properly close our books,” Muhammadou said.
For Muhammadou and his team, they still have a considerable number of transactions in the spend plan that are scheduled to be executed this quarter. As they reconcile these final transactions and close the books on fiscal year 2023, simultaneously they’re still executing.
“We are going to have contracts that will go down to the wire and be executed on September 30th. It can be extremely challenging and stressful,” he said.
But lucky for Muhammadou and the 405th AFSB, the brigade’s resource management office receives much assistance from ASC, 21st Theater Sustainment Command and U.S. Army Europe and Africa. And he has an amazing team of professional analysts – both local national employees from multiple countries and U.S. Army federal civilians – all who are up for the challenge, he said.
“It would be impossible to have a successful year-end closeout without the team I have,” Muhammadou said. “Their camaraderie, commitment, dedication, hard work and teamwork is truly remarkable.”
Another challenge at year-end closeout, according to Muhammadou, is the 405th AFSB’s rather large reimbursable budget – meaning the reimbursable services and support the brigade provides to other organizations and units across the European footprint.
“I'll take the non-tactical vehicles, for instance,” said Muhammadou, of which there are over 1,400 across the theater, he added. “Not every unit pays their bills on time so it's a challenge making sure that we get a hold of those units to ensure that we receive the funding in time to obligate.”
But overall, it’s a total team effort to close out the end-of-year budget and prepare for the next fiscal year, Muhammadou said. Everyone works incredibly hard to do so, and they do so as a team.
“It takes multiple stakeholders to have a successful year-end closeout. Thank you to my team and to everyone that continues to support us. The G-8 back at ASC headquarters and the 21st TSC G-8 – they have been tremendous. We couldn't do it without them,” said Muhammadou.
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.