Stephen Kunze serves as the Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Director for Financial Management. As Deputy CFO, he is responsible for financial management and accounting throughout the Department, for preparation of the Departments annual consolidated financial statements, and for development and implementation of a Department-wide integrated financial system. His responsibilities include promulgating financial management policy throughout the Department and for ensuring the Departments compliance with financial management laws and regulations, including the Chief Financial Officers Act, the Government Management Reform Act, the Government Performance and Results Act and the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act. Mr. Kunze is also responsible for the Office of Secretary budget operations.

Prior to this Mr. Kunze served as the Chief Financial Officer for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration where he was responsible for Budget Operations, Acquisitions and Financial Management of the agency. Previous to that position, Mr. Kunze served as the Chief Financial Officer for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in the Department of Agriculture. He led NRCS Accounting Operations, Financial Policy, Systems and Training, Budget Formulation and Execution, and Quality Assurance organizations. Mr. Kunze was also the Deputy Chief Financial Officer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) where he was responsible for the Budget, Acquisitions, Financial Management, Internal Controls, Grants and Business Systems divisions.

Prior to NIST, Mr. Kunze was the Director of Employee Support Services for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). There he was responsible for all non-Information Technology administrative programs in support of all 113,000 IRS employees. This included: Payroll and Personnel Systems, Travel and Credit Card Services, the Agency-wide Employee Contact Center, and the IRS geographic Business Resumption program.

Stephen joined the federal government with IRS in 1987 as a Presidential Management Intern in the Chief Financial Officers organization. Stephen was later nominated to the Excellence in Government Fellows program, an intensive results-oriented leadership program, in 1996 and is an active member of their Senior Fellows program.

Stephen received a B.A. in Political Science from Providence College and his Masters in Public Affairs from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.