Patricia Healy is an Executive Consultant with CGI, and the former Deputy Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), having recently retired in January 2008. She first became the Deputy CFO of USDA in October 1999, serving as second in command for overall financial management activities of the over 100,000 employees in the Department and for direct management of 1,300 employees in the Office of the Chief Financial Officer in Washington, DC, and the National Finance Center (NFC) in New Orleans. As full deputy under a Senate Confirmed Presidential Appointee, she also served as Acting CFO of USDA for a combined 3 years during the transition to the Bush Administration and when the political CFOs resigned. Her duties involved accounting and reporting responsibilities for one of the most complex departments in the Federal Government with over $120 billion in program funds, one-third of all federal non-tax debt, and $95 billion in annual outlays.
Ms. Healy also had direct line responsibility for NFC, a government-wide fee for service entity. NFC annually processed $55 billion in payroll disbursements for approximately 565,000 Federal employees (one-third of the Federal civilian workforce), billed and collected approximately $1.4 billion in employee indebtedness, and reconciled timely two million Federal health benefits records. When Hurricane Katrina devastated NFC in New Orleans, she successfully led the New Orleans organizations through complete deployment of their operations to 4 disaster recovery and continuity of operations (COOP) worksites. This included NFC and its government-wide payroll and human resources systems and operations; USDA’s accounting and financial reporting operations; and USDA’s financial and administrative systems. NFC did not miss a payroll and USDA met its obligation to deliver consolidated financial statements to OMB by November 15, albeit from a COOP site, 75 days after the hurricane fully disrupted operations. Working with colleagues throughout USDA, Ms. Healy also ensured that NFC employees, over 80 percent of whom lost part or all over their homes, were housed and cared for so they could continue their vital service to the federal government.
Prior to her move to USDA, Ms. Healy served as the National Director for the Systems and Accounting Standards Division (SASD) at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), reporting to the Chief Financial Officer. As National Director, she managed five offices responsible for administrative accounting policies, standards and financial reports, including the administrative financial statements; financial systems policies and procedures; travel management and relocation; office automation and data communications; and the development, implementation and maintenance of the IRS’ comprehensive financial management system.
Ms. Healy has successfully implemented enterprise-wide comprehensive financial management system at both USDA and the IRS.
Recent Publications:
Making Large, Complex IT Projects Succeed (CGI Initiative, June 2010)
“A Path for Optimizing Federal Financial System Implementations” (CGI Initiative, May 2010)
Moving to Management Transparency (CGI Whitepaper, February 2009)
On to Transparency (GovernmentExecutive.com, June 10, 2009)
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