Accounting Technician

General

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund ("VCF") was created to provide compensation for any individual (or a personal representative of a deceased individual) who suffered physical harm or was killed as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001 or the debris removal efforts that took place in the immediate aftermath of those crashes.  The original VCF operated from 2001-2004.  On January 2, 2011, President Obama signed into law the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 (Zadroga Act) that reactivated the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund in October 2011 and on December 18, 2015, reauthorizing the Act extending the Fund for five years.  The Fund was authorized permanently in July 2019.  More information about the VCF can be found at https://www.vcf.gov/.

The payment of VCF claims is the most critical aspect of the claims process for several reasons, and the most difficult due to the short statutory timeframe in which payments must be processed and the requirements for 100% accuracy.  VCF payments are administered following an established process that involves the DOJ Office of Planning, Budget and Evaluation (OPBE) and the US Treasury.  Payment processing involves the use of several different systems and tools and requires tracking inputs and outputs from and to multiple sources.

Under the direction of VCF Payment Processing Supervisor, the Payment Team Payment Processor (Accounting Technician) will perform the following tasks while complying with established Payment Standard Operating Procedures:

Duties and Responsibilities

• Review and analyze financial data, documents and manual or automated payment systems.
• Create, file, retrieve and copy claim and payment documents.
• Enter basic claimant payment data into databases.
• Proofread, edit and correct payment documents.
• Complete tracking spreadsheets and report on task progress.
• Perform quality control on the work of peers in all of these areas.
• Perform basic and intermediate level database searches.
• Perform moderately complex payment support tasks, including, detailed review and analysis of payment information such as claimant files, compensation detail, and claimant and/or law firm banking forms.
• Perform detailed filing of payment softcopy files.
• Assist with the preparation and review of payment reports.
• Other payment or PAAQC duties as assigned.

Competencies

• Consistently and accurately perform detailed work under pressure.
• Pay excruciating attention to detail, deadlines and quality control.
• Read and follow instructions and Payment Standard Operating Procedures.
• Understand task, task objectives and the context of those tasks in the payment lifecycle.
• Proactively identify issues that impact payment and propose alternate solutions to address issues.
• Initiate questions when necessary to complete tasks correctly (e.g. where instructions are not explicit or appear to be contrary to the task objective).
• Excellent typing/keyboarding and communication skills.
• Knowledgeable user of DOJ office and network environment, including but not limited to word processing, data processing environments, including office automation networks, PC-based databases and other applications