Air Force Institute of Technology
Located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, this institution offers ten master’s degree programs in residence including the areas of cost analysis and information resource management. The cost analysis curriculum consists of 16 required courses, two electives and eight quarter hours of thesis preparation. AFIT also has a Distance Learning Center that broadcasts satellite courses.
Defense Financial Management & Comptroller School (DFM&CS)
The DFM&CS offers courses to Financial Managers emphasizing critical thinking, strategic orientation, conflict resolution, and leadership approach skill sets. Students explore concepts regarding key financial management issues, strategic partnerships, building leadership and interpersonal skills, and are provided with a broader knowledge of contingency operations and economics. Two courses are currently offered, the Defense Financial Manager’s Course (DFMC) which is four weeks in length and offered six times per year, and the Reserve Forces Comptroller Course (RFCC) which is two weeks in length and offered each summer.
Defense Resources Management Institute
Located on the Naval Postgraduate School campus in Monterey, California, the DRMI teaches eight different resident courses. The Defense Resources Management Course is for US personnel (03 – 06 and GS 09 – GS 15) and international equivalents, is offered five times a year and lasts four weeks. The course offers 116 hours of CPE and four hours of graduate credit if desired. It can be attended in two, two-week increments. Foreign military officers and civilians of the same grades may attend the International Defense Management course which lasts 11 weeks and is taught twice a year. The Senior International Defense Management Course (for flag and general Officers) lasts four weeks and is offered once a year. All of these courses focus on key concepts related to the efficient and effective allocation of resources. DRMI also offers shorter courses (one or two weeks) to the same target audience in the areas of Risk Management; Multi-Criteria Decision Making; Budget Preparation, Execution and Accountability; Streamlining Government; and Performance Management and Budgeting. All courses are tuition free for US participants. Please visit the website www.nps.edu/drmi for more information on enrollment and course dates.
Naval Postgraduate School In addition to several Master’s degree programs in systems management, NPS teaches the Navy Practical Comptrollership Course under the heading of executive training. It is a nine day course hosted by the Navy Financial Management Center and concentrates on accounting, budgeting, planning, auditing, evaluation, and performance measurement. NOTE: You can download the text for the Navy Practical Comptrollership Course!
Army Finance School
Located at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the Army Finance School is the Military Occupational Specialty producing institution for the US Army Finance Corps. There are also training opportunities for civilian employees, particularly in the areas of accounting, management accounting, and analysis and the Planning, Programming, Budget and Execution System (PPBES). This site also has lots of down loadable documents relating to courses in travel, PPBES, resource management, and budget training, advanced management accounting and analysis and others.
Defense Comptrollership Program
This program consists of a specially tailored master’s degree in residence at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York. The program is managed by the Army Comptroller Proponency Office, which releases an annual announcement regarding how to apply for consideration for entry into the program.
Defense Acquisition University
The DAU is actually a consortium of 12 DoD institutions that teach 85 courses for the 11 acquisition career fields (including approximately 4,000 financial managers in the Acquisition Corps under the heading of Business, Cost Estimating and Financial Management). In addition to a complete catalog and schedule for all of these courses, DAU has a number of on-line course offerings which can be taken over the internet or on your PC. Examples are: a statistical overview course, on-line and interactive for four acquisition courses to include simplified acquisition procedures, valuable for all financial personnel to understand.
CFO Academy
The CFO Academy is currently offering a CFO Leadership Certificate program at the National Defense University’s Information Resources Management College (iCollege). The CFO Leadership Certificate consists of 8 courses offered at the iCollege located on Fort McNair in Southwest, Washington, DC. Each of the courses are offered in resident (e-Resident) and on-line (Distributed Learning). This program is free to Defense Department students. (Travel and associated costs are financed by the student’s home unit.) Students working toward the CFO Leadership Certificate take four courses focusing on building leadership competencies in areas such as budget/congressional relations, the future of financial reporting, and portfolio management. Four remaining courses in strategic leadership deal with areas like leadership in the information age, multi-agency collaboration, and measuring results among others.
Management Concepts
Individuals who seek a comprehensive overview of the defense financial management environment. This course is excellent preparation for the Certified Defense Financial Manager (CDFM) exam.