Accountant

Full Job Description

This position is located in the Mt. Weather Emergency Operations Center, Finance and Administration Division, Finance Branch.

The ideal candidate for this position will possess exceptional analytical skills and have experience formulating and executing queries of financial databases, reconciling financial data, and preparing complex payroll reports.

Current Federal employees must have served 52 weeks at the next lower grade or equivalent grade band in the Federal service.

The time-in-grade requirement must be met within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement.

The qualification requirements listed below must be met by the closing date of this announcement (transcripts required).

Individual Occupational Requirements Basic Requirements: Degree: accounting; or a degree in a related field such as business administration, finance, or public administration that included or was supplemented by 24 semester hours in accounting.

The 24 hours may include up to 6 hours of credit in business law. (The term "accounting" means "accounting and/or auditing" in this standard.

Similarly, "accountant" should be interpreted, generally, as "accountant and/or auditor.") OR Combination of education and experience: at least 4 years of experience in accounting, or an equivalent combination of accounting experience, college-level education, and training that provided professional accounting knowledge.

The applicant's background must also include one of the following: Twenty-four semester hours in accounting or auditing courses of appropriate type and quality.

This can include up to 6 hours of business law; A certificate as Certified Public Accountant or a Certified Internal Auditor, obtained through written examination; or Completion of the requirements for a degree that included substantial course work in accounting or auditing, e.g., 15 semester hours, but that does not fully satisfy the 24-semester-hour requirement of paragraph A, provided that (a) the applicant has successfully worked at the full-performance level in accounting, auditing, or a related field, e.g., valuation engineering or financial institution examining; (b) a panel of at least two higher level professional accountants or auditors has determined that the applicant has demonstrated a good knowledge of accounting and of related and underlying fields that equals in breadth, depth, currency, and level of advancement that which is normally associated with successful completion of the 4-year course of study described in paragraph A; and (c) except for literal nonconformance to the requirement of 24 semester hours in accounting, the applicant's education, training, and experience fully meet the specified requirements.

In addition to the above basic requirement, to qualify for this position at the GS-13 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the GS-12 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position.

Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following: Executing financial queries using Oracle Structured Query Language (SQL) or Microsoft Access, AND Analyzing and reconciling financial data retrieved from multiple source systems, AND Researching and resolving complex accounting issues and systems problems.

Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application: Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.

Please limit your resume to two pages. The USAJOBS database will not allow an applicant to submit an application that includes a resume over two pages.

Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity.

Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience. Are you qualifying based on your work experience?

Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility.

To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJOBS online Resume Builder.

If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position: (1) job title, (2) name of employer, (3) start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), (4) detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills, and (5) hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience).

Federal experience/positions must also include the occupational series, grade level, and dates in which you held each grade level. Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/DAE employee?

To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment.

Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information.

Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found "not qualified." Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social).

Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment.

You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM General Schedule Qualification Standards Major Duties:

All MWEOC staff have emergency assignments and are considered deployed in place. Exercises and activations are planned and unplanned, and may require long hours, nights, weekends and holidays. All MWEOC employees are:

required to use a government-issued electronic device (to include cellular phones);

subject to recall during emergency situations; and

required to perform work in locations both above and below ground. What will I do in this position if hired?

In this position, you will serve as an Accountant responsible for performing complex cost analysis, cost projections, and maintenance of accounting records.

Typical assignments include: Performing complex salary and benefit (S&B) analysis and preparing detailed cost projections.

Interpreting accounting reports, statements, and data which point out trends, identifying deviations from standards and/or plans, and projects data into the future.

Resolving complex accounting problems and providing guidance and assistance to program managers and operating personnel on all matters of financial management and financial operations.

Validating a variety of accounting data entered into schedules and accounts, making adjustments, and preparing reports. Participating in internal and external audit reviews and cash reconciliations.

What else do I need to know? At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management.

Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites.

All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description.

Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions.