Melissa A. Sikora, Director, DFAS Enterprise Accounting & Audit Support

Melissa A. Sikora is the Director, DFAS Enterprise Accounting and Audit Support. In this role, Ms. Sikora leads a professional staff that provides enterprise-wide financial reporting and accounting services, oversight and standardization of enterprise financial information requirements and business intelligence solutions, and oversight and guidance for DFAS’ support to the Department of Defense audit readiness efforts. Enterprise Accounting and Audit Support drives DFAS and DoD audit and financial reporting successes by means of increased collaboration, support, and solutions.

Prior to her current role, Ms. Sikora was the Director, DFAS Enterprise Audit Support & Compliance, where she led a professional staff that provided enterprise-wide oversight and guidance for DFAS’ support to the Department of Defense audit readiness efforts. Enterprise Audit Support & Compliance provided the framework with which DFAS executed actions to support the Department’s audit readiness goals by ensuring DFAS services were ready for independent audit.

Ms. Sikora was the Deputy Site Director, DFAS Cleveland from July 2014 to April 2019, where she led more than 2,100 accounting and finance personnel responsible for paying the operational expenses for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. In additional, the site provided pay support to 4 million people, including active duty, reserve and civilian employees of the Navy, Marine Corps, Department of Energy, Health and Human Services and the Broadcast Board of Governors, as well as military retirees and annuitants from all four Service branches.

Prior to being the Deputy Site Director, Ms. Sikora was the Director of Corporate Reporting. Though her time in this position was only less than a year, she served as an advocate for important changes to enterprise systems and influenced change to Financial Improvement and Audit Readiness guidance to support the Department’s short term audit readiness goals to produce and support the Schedule of Budgetary Activity (SBA), and the longer term goal of fully supporting the Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR).

Ms. Sikora was the Accounting Director at the DFAS Cleveland Center from 2009 until 2014, where she managed the operations of Navy and Marine Corps financial statement reporting, general ledger maintenance, accounts payables, accounts receivables, and systems operations. She also took on an additional challenge of leading the DFAS efforts in supporting the audit of the Marine Corps SBA, supporting financial statement audits for both the Navy and Marine Corps, and even championing the Financial Statement Compilation and Reporting assertion milestone for the Navy.

Also during Ms. Sikora’s tenure as the Cleveland Accounting Director, she held a developmental assignment with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Financial Management Operations (FMO). Some of her day-to-day responsibilities at the Navy FMO included overseeing the preparation of the Quarterly Financial Statements, preparing and presenting the OSD and SMP Metrics to executive level stakeholders, and serving as the liaison between DFAS and Navy on the Navy’s Integrated Plan of Action and Milestones for the SBR Audit Assertion.

Prior to her position as the Accounting Director, Ms. Sikora served as the Director of Departmental Reporting, overseeing key financial reporting requirements for the Navy and Marine Corps. During the 2006 and 2007 timeframe, Ms. Sikora was the project officer for two transition teams responsible for moving the DFAS workload to Cleveland from both the Oakland and Charleston field offices that were impacted by Base Realignment and Closures.

Before joining DFAS in 1999, Ms. Sikora served as a senior auditor with the Department of Defense Inspector General Office, where she developed an extensive knowledge of Department of Defense organizations and performed audit work in all of the Military Departments and the Defense Logistics Agency. Her early experience as an auditor has been a key strength to her financial management experience at DFAS, where she has emerged as a key leader in audit readiness improvements, demonstrating her passion and devotion to improving financial statement supportability and auditability.
 

Page updated January 4, 2022