Coast Guard becomes third DHS agency to modernize financial system

The Coast Guard has transitioned to an updated integrated financial, procurement and asset management system with automated controls and heightened security, the Department of Homeland Security announced Friday.

Called the Financial System Modernization Solution (FSMS), it also has features to help the Coast Guard standardize its more than $12 billion budget with the rest of DHS.

The system is part of DHS‘s FSM initiative to update legacy financial systems with an emphasis on security, data integrity and more accurate, transparent financial reporting.

“Modernizing our financial support systems is vital to the Department of Homeland Security and is one of our top priorities,” said Stacy Marcott, acting chief financial officer, in the announcement. “The new system will vastly improve the U.S. Coast Guard’s business systems, help employees be more productive and allow them to achieve more reliable results when paying bills, procuring goods and services, reporting and managing budgets and much more.”

The Coast Guard is the third DHS agency to transition to FSMS, after the Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office in October 2019 and the Transportation Security Administration in October 2020.

Chief Financial Officer Rear Adm. Mark Fedor estimated the transition took hundreds of employees thousands of hours to implement.