Treasury's OTFI Requests Funding Increase for Sanctions Programs

The Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence is requesting a nearly $25 million budget increase from the previous year, partly to help with staffing concerns, according to Treasury’s annual budget report. OTFI lists its “increasing role” in the Trump administration as justification for the increased budget. The agency is requesting about $165 million.

Part of the increased funding would go toward Treasury’s “targeted financial tools” that counter financial networks that support terrorists, transnational crime and corrupt regimes, according to the report. But Treasury would also prioritize more staffing, the report said, as the agency is increasingly asked to “apply economic pressure in pursuit of national security” and foreign policy. “As the number of sanctions programs continues to grow,” the report states, “there is a crucial need for increasing intelligence, policy, and targeting staff to identify and take impactful actions against the individuals, entities, and their networks responsible for this dangerous and malign behavior.”

The staffing increase would address personnel issues in OTFI’s “Iran, Russia, Human Rights/Corruption and Counterterrorism Programs,” the report said. Many foreign entities have “complex business structures” that require extensive analysis and “post-designation support” to ensure enforcement and “maximum impact,” the report said, resulting in a need for more staffing. “These are high priority areas for the Administration and Treasury and constitute the majority of taskings and requirements levied upon TFI and its component offices,” the report states.

The agency also requests funding for administrative, communications, software and data needs for the Office of Foreign Assets Control. The agency is looking to further automate its Terrorist Assets Report by "enabling the electronic upload of data" directly into OFAC's system, moving away from the current "labor-intensive, mostly manual process." Funding will also help OFAC with its "secure bi-directional, data/e-communication transfers with the public" to allow financial entities the ability to file information required by OFAC quickly and securely, the report states. OFAC also wants to improve "hardware and software necessary to enable case management functionality" on Treasury's networks and provide "mature data analytics functionality" to "perform maintenance on existing designees," the report said. Treasury said this improvement will help it see a "150 percent increase in ISIS terrorism targets" and a "50 percent increase in targeting across other counter terrorism groups" by allowing it to "identify direct and indirect relationships" between designees.