UFC 1 -300-08
30 JUNE 2004
facilities on the installation or base and the Realty Specialist (also known as the Realty
Officer or Real Property Specialist) who inputs data into the real property database and
voucher register. Construction agent project managers should share the information in this
UFC with their Contracting Officers to ensure that all data requirements for the DD Form
1354 are written into every construction contract as a specific deliverable. Appendix D
provides a sample Building Information Checklist that should be specified as a deliverable
in the construction contract. Each Service may have a different format.
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STATEMENT OF NEED. One of the most vital real property accounting issues
to be addressed by DoD to meet requirements for the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990
(CFOA) relates to the Services capitalizing new capital construction, acquisitions, and
improvements at occupancy. The three Departments and Washington Headquarters
Services are the official stewards of property belonging to the United States of America
and used by DoD. Before CFOA, recording capitalization costs and dates was not
important to the construction agents or the Services. The books got balanced eventually
when all costs were accumulated. This often took several years, particularly when there
were protests or litigation after construction. However, the CFOA requires an accurate
accounting of all real property DoD uses each year in an annual financial statement. Even
with financial accounting identified as a high priority, DoD has not yet received a `clean'
opinion on its financial statement. A major problem has been the inconsistent and late
capitalization of construction and capital improvements to Services' databases. The
service-unique instructions (if any) on the transfer and acceptance process are outdated
and incomplete. Further, the DD Form 1354 has not been updated in the decade that
brought so many changes to our accounting processes. This failure to update the form and
guidance causes dedicated employees to make new errors and perpetuate old practices
when trying to accurately report assets worth 18% of the entire DoD portfolio.
1-5.1
This UFC, a DD Form 1354 Handbook o n which the revised form is based,
effectively outlines for the first time the diverse roles and responsibilities of all the parties to
capital construction activities and outlines a consistent process across all three
Departments. The actions outlined in this UFC are not changes to the process. The laws
and regulations governing the transfer and acceptance of real property have required these
steps. The new DD Form 1354 meets today's CFOA requirements and this UFC explains
how to comply with well-defined requirements.
1-5.2
The CFOA also forced a reckoning of the CIP accounts in the hands of the DoD
construction agents and the individual Departments. These CIP accounts are `material' to
the department financial reports and are almost impossible to report under current
practices. The three Departments have had such parochial and diverse accounting
systems that they can't `speak' to each other. Not only are they formatted differently, there
has been no attempt until recently to integrate the Air Force project numbers into the
USACE or NAVFAC systems to provide audit tracking of the end-of-year beginning and
ending balances of CIP. As the auditors are forcing the cooperative effort to accurately
report our assets, this UFC addresses CIP as part of the acceptance and transfer process
associated with the DD Form 1354.
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