§ 708 — Property And Fiscal Officers

(a) The Governor of each State, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands, and the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia, shall, in consultation with the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, appoint, designate or detail, subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air Force, a qualified commissioned officer of the National Guard of that jurisdiction who is also a commissioned officer of the Army National Guard of the United States or the Air National Guard of the United States, as the case may be, to be the property and fiscal officer of that jurisdiction. If the officer is not on active duty, the President may order him to active duty, with his consent, to serve as a property and fiscal officer. (b) Each property and fiscal officer shall— (1) receipt and account for all funds and property of the United States in the possession of the National Guard for which he is property and fiscal officer; and (2) make returns and reports concerning those funds and that property, as required by the Secretary concerned. (c) When he ceases to hold that assignment, a property and fiscal officer resumes his status as an officer of the National Guard. (d) The Secretaries shall prescribe a maximum grade, commensurate with the functions and responsibilities of the office, but not above colonel, for the property and fiscal officer of the United States for the National Guard of each State, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. (e) The Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air Force shall prescribe joint regulations necessary to carry out subsections (a)–(d). (f) A property and fiscal officer may intrust money to an officer of the National Guard to make disbursements as his agent. Both the officer to whom money is intrusted, and the property and disbursing officer intrusting the money to him, are pecuniarily responsible for that money to the United States. The agent officer is subject, for misconduct as an agent, to the liabilities and penalties prescribed by law in like cases for the property and fiscal officer for whom he is acting.