Government Accountability Office

Department of Justice: Working Capital Fund Adheres to Some Key Operating Principles but Could Better Measure Performance and Communicate with Customers Government Accountability Office

JMD has overall responsibility for managing the working capital fund and AFF. Justice?s working capital fund was created by Congress on January 2, 1975. The fund is authorized to maintain moneys from four distinct sources, or functions (see table 1). The first and primary function of the fund is to finance, on a reimbursable basis, administrative shared services provided by JMD to other components of the department and other federal agencies. The second function of the working capital fund is to collect up to 3 percent of funds collected pursuant to civil debt collection litigation activities into the fund. A third function of the working capital fund is to collect up to 4 percent of earnings from its shared services provision. Finally, the working capital fund?s fourth function is to capture expired departmental unobligated balances into the working capital fund?s Unobligated Balance Transfers (UBT) account. Because the working capital fund is a no-year account, all amounts earned or collected by the fund are available without fiscal year limitation to be used for specific authorized purposes. For example, amounts from three of the four working capital fund functions may be used for capital equipment investments and financial system improvements.