MAXWELL AFB-GUNTER ANNEX-Ala. -- The mission of the Program and Budget Enterprise System (PBES) is to deliver financial data to facilitate decision making throughout the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution process for the needs of both the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and Congress in a timely manner.
The Department of the Air Force (DAF) submits their portion of the President’s Budget to the Office of the Secretary of Defense every year using the Program and Budget Enterprise System (PBES).
For the DAF to successfully complete the President’s Budget (PB), a Program Objectives Memorandum (POM) must be submitted. This annual operation is conducted in the summer prior to the PB submission.
First, the budget’s baseline is extended to the following Fiscal Year followed by Major Command (MAJCOM) users submitting their estimated future requirements into PBES. Once inputs are complete, the POM is submitted to the OSD which marks a successful POM.
For the FY25 POM operation, PBES had to overcome several major hurdles. The first being major system stability issues. In March 2023, PBES had 19 hours of unplanned system downtime. If the issue wasn’t fixed immediately, the FY25 POM mission would have failed.
“PBES is the only system in the DAF used to submit the DAF POM and President’s Budget to OSD and system failure is not an option,” said Austin Bartolo, PBES Lead Engineer.
PBES sent a team of engineers and developers to the Hill Enterprise Data Center at Hill AFB, Utah, to determine the root cause and resolve the problem. The team formulated technical solutions and enhanced communication capabilities which ultimately led to zero hours of unplanned downtime during the months of April, May, and June 2023, which is a critical time for the development of the POM.
In addition to the stability issue, the PBES’ System Integrator contract, which sustains the system and delivers critical PBES patches, was scheduled to end during the POM. In less than five weeks, the PBES Program Management Office (PMO) in partnership with the Financial Systems division (GBG) Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, Contracting and Financial Management teams, received Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Contracting and Legal approval for a $1.8 million bridge contract which ensured vital support from an industry partner and avoided a catastrophic break in service that would have jeopardized finalization and submission of FY25 PB to OSD.
In a parallel effort, the PMO worked to award a $1.4 million contract which provided financial planning, requirement analysis, functional testing, and configuration management support required to successfully complete the POM.
“There was minimal down time and functionality worked as expected. Over 150 MAJCOM and Air Staff users were in the system inputting dollars, inventory, and manpower numbers. The dashboard created for the Secretary of the Air Force proved beneficial for Senior Leadership visibility throughout the POM process. PBES continues to provide functionality which streamlines a very difficult process for the Air Force,” said Marcee Moore, PBES Requirements Manager and Senior Functional Analyst.
In the following months, PBES users will complete the President’s Budget by making final edits to their original requirements submitted in the POM. Once finalized, the President’s Budget will be sent to Congress for approval. After approval by Congress, the allocated Air Force funds will be distributed to Headquarters Air Force and MAJCOMs to acquire manpower, aircraft, materials, and other resources required to continue operating in the world’s greatest Air Force and Space Force.