It's used in accounting. Corporations go by fiscal years & I think their fiscal years can be any day of the year, though they might be limited to picking the first of one of the months.
May 1st, 1971 thru April 30th, 1972 would be a fiscal year. The next fiscal year (using that same fiscal year) would begin on May 1st, 1972 & end April 30th, 1972.
The Globe claims to have gone by the regs in place at the time covered, yet they've come to a different conclusion than you did. From just about everything I've seen come out of them, I'd trust your eval more than theirs.
I wish I had been more accurate in my original post...the Globe is still distorting by using "fiscal," but not in the way I had indicated.
It seems to me that their use of "fiscal year" is just to refer to a consecutive 12 month period. So when they say "two consecutive fiscal years" it seems to mean that they just mean 24 continuous months. They give us no temporal qualification of that term, nor do they bother indicating that the Air National Guard had a particular fiscal year in mind when it comes to Bush, nor do they mention the fact that for those particular fiscal years there is evidence that Bush served.
They are being intentionally vague with that term, vague in a way that distorts the truth, which is that Bush served honorably as far as the guard is concerned. What the Globe has done is taken the uncontested facts -- i.e. Bush served these following sets of days... -- and reinterpted them to reflect negatively upon him, reinterpreted them in a way that, for the guard, is wholly irrelevant. The only way they could have done this is if they had thrown out the fiscal year that is appropriate to evaluating Bush's service: April 30 to May 1.
May 1st, 1971 thru April 30th, 1972 would be a fiscal year. The next fiscal year (using that same fiscal year) would begin on May 1st, 1972 & end April 30th, 1972.
The Globe claims to have gone by the regs in place at the time covered, yet they've come to a different conclusion than you did. From just about everything I've seen come out of them, I'd trust your eval more than theirs.
Actually the term "fiscal" refers specifically to money. Thus "fiscal year" is a year defined for accounting purposes.It would be bending the literal definition a bit, but I suppose you could style the May 1 - April 30 period which is according to the article the germane definition of "year" for TANG purposes a "fiscal year."
That would not necessarily be deceptive - provided that you are clear that you are using the term in a generalized sense to refer to the specific 365 day interval germane to Bush's service in the TANG. The Globe however intentionally conflated that kinda "fiscal" year with the specific fiscal year for Federal budgetary accounting which I believe runs from one September to the next, annually.