Defense Commissary Agency Financial Reporting of Property, Plant, and Equipment.

This audit was performed to meet requirements of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, as amended by the Federal Financial Management Act of 1994, for financial statement audits. The Defense Commissary Agency DeCA was incorporated into the former Defense Business Operations Fund now the Defense Working Capital Fund on October 1, 1991. The goals of the Defense Working Capital Fund organizations are to standardize, consolidate, and improve systems and operations and to focus management attention on the total costs of business operations to reduce those costs. Defense Working Capital Fund organizations operate as a business, recovering the costs of their operations through the sale of goods or services to their customers. The customers are primarily Military Department operational units. The primary mission of DeCA is to operate a worldwide system of retail grocery stores making quality goods available at the lowest possible cost to active duty personnel, retirees, and their families. DeCA operates more than 300 commissary stores worldwide with annual sales of about 5.2 billion, and it employs about 17,000 people. DeCA performs its mission through three types of funds each fund produces a separate set of financial statements. The three funds are the Commissary Operations Fund, the Commissary Resale Stock Fund, and the Commissary Surcharge Collections Trust Fund. However, only two of the funds, the Commissary Operations Fund and the Commissary Resale Stock Fund, were made a pan of the Defense Working Capital Funds. The Commissary Surcharge Collections Trust Fund is not part of the Defense Working Capital Funds, but it is the major source of DeCA funding for the construction of new commissary facilities and the purchase of commissary equipment, which is classified as property, plant, and equipment. For FY 1996, the DECA financial statements reported the total costs of all property, plant, and equipment as 257.6 million.