Highlights
Looking for Ways to Strengthen
Your Agency’s Performance Reporting?
Don’t miss AGA’s Third Annual National Performance Management Conference
(PMC), set for Sept. 24 – 25 at the Embassy Suites Phoenix/Scottsdale
Golf Resort, to sharpen your performance reporting techniques. Take
advantage of this once-a-year opportunity to network with industry
experts, learn from speakers honored with AGA’s Certificate of
Achievement in SEA Reporting and earn 14 CPE hours.
Book Hotel Room
View
Current Agenda
Register Online Now
Speakers include:
- Robert H. Attmore, CGFM, CPA,
Chairman, Governmental Accounting Standards Board
- Frank Fairbanks, City Manager,
City of Phoenix, AZ
- Michael Lawson, Director, Center
for Performance Management, International City/County Management
Association
- Rep. Mark Miloscia, State
Representative, State of Washington
- D. Clark Partridge, CGFM, State
Comptroller, Department of Administration, General Accounting Office,
State of Arizona
- David R. Smith, County Manager,
Maricopa County, AZ
- Jonathan Walters, Staff
Correspondent, Governing Magazine, Author, Measuring Up 2.0
Don’t miss the opportunity to bring invaluable
performance management strategies back to your government entity. We
look forward to seeing you in Phoenix!
Training Opportunities
Looking for a
Job?
Last Week to
Register Early for the Sept. 20 Transitional Leadership Audio Conference
AGA, in conjunction with the National Association
of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT), and the Association
of Local Government Auditors (ALGA), is offering a new audio conference on
making the transition from individual contributor to leader. This audio
conference, set for 2 – 3:50 p.m. EDT Sept. 20 and
worth 2 CPE hours, will explore what tools and techniques new leaders need
to succeed.
To discuss this important personal development challenge is
Robert A. Carnegie, MBA, founder of R. Carnegie and Associates,
Inc. Cost is $249 per site (unlimited attendance) if you register on or
before Friday, Sept. 14, 2007 and $299 thereafter.
Register online
View the full audio conference schedule.
|
September 10,
2007• News from the Profession
AGA Today is Brought
to You by AGA Corporate Partner Clifton Gunderson
 Clifton
Gunderson offices in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD and Harrisburg, PA are
looking for experienced professionals to join our public sector practice.
The ideal candidate will have 5+ yrs of Public Accounting or equivalent
audit experience along with your BA/BS in Accounting and CPA or CGFM. Duties
will include audits of Federal entities, State & Local audits (GASB), A-133
audits, and compliance auditing. To apply please e-mail
Jennifer.Busse@cliftoncpa.com
GAO Criticizes Homeland
Security's Efforts to Fulfill Its Mission
Hobbled by inadequate funding, unclear priorities, continuing
reorganizations and the absence of an overarching strategy, the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security is failing to achieve its mission of
preventing and responding to terrorist attacks or natural disasters,
according to a comprehensive report by the Government Accountability Office
(GAO). The highly critical report disputes recent upbeat assessments by the
Bush administration by concluding that the department has failed to make
even moderate progress toward eight of 14 internal government benchmarks
more than four years after its creation. —Spencer S. Hsu, The Washington
Post.
Read the entire article.
AGA Member Takes Lead in
Creating Citizen-Centric Report for Los Lunas, NM
Knowing that most citizens are unlikely to wade
through dense, overly complicated financial reports, one AGA member in
the Village of Los Lunas, NM, created a four-page economic overview
using a model developed by AGA.
AGA believes the “citizen-centric” reports will make
government budgets and performance more easy to understand and could
therefore increase participation in government. In the case of Los
Lunas, the village’s operating budget alone is 100 pages.
Peter Fernández, financial services planner of Los
Lunas, said a citizen-centric report fit with the village’s progressive
philosophy, so he set forth pulling the financial information, which was
readily available in most cases, and plugging the numbers into a
template developed by AGA. He said the biggest challenge was not
finding the information, but limiting it to four pages.
Fernández recently presented the report to the Los
Lunas Council and mayor at the same meeting that the final budget was
adopted. He received good reviews, and decided to add the report to the
front of his budget document. It’s also available on the
village website.
“From the administrator to the mayor and the council,
it’s been very well received,” he said. “They focused on how informative
it was and how easy it was to read and understand.” —Christina
Camara, AGA.
Read the entire article.
AGA
Today is Brought to You by AGA Corporate Partner The Graduate
School, USDA
 Enhance
your financial management intern and developmental programs.
The Graduate School, USDA provides professional training
and educational services to financial managers. If your agency has a
professional development program for financial management staff, we can help
you ensure a richer developmental experience with our extensive curriculum
of basic, intermediate and advanced courses. We also offer customized
development services to help you design a new program that meets your unique
requirements. For more information, call (888) 744-GRAD or visit
www.grad.usda.gov.
Federal Accounting
Corner
Decoding the Statement of Custodial Activity
The Statement of Custodial Activity (SCA) is pretty
straightforward until you try and map it to Standard General Ledger
(SGL) accounts. Most agencies don't need to prepare it, since it must be
material to the agency's operations (although a footnote is required if
they are not material). Custodial activity can be defined functionally
as Treasury General Fund (GF) Receipts that are not reported on the
Statement of Net Cost or Statement of Changes in Net Position. Common
examples include taxes and interest revenue from delinquent accounts
receivable. —Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM, CPA.
Read the entire column.
Housing Slump Strains
Budgets of States, Cities
Tremors from the housing market's slump are straining the budgets
of state and local governments from coast to coast, sending officials
scrambling to plug gaps. Rising defaults on subprime home loans are
boosting the inventory of unsold homes and driving sale prices lower.
That's cutting into housing-related revenues from building-permit fees,
taxes on contracting and recording property transfers, and even sales
taxes. As a result, legislators in Florida, which was at the forefront
of the housing boom, plan a special session this month to consider deep
budget cuts to offset a projected $1.5 billion funding gap. California
forecasts a shortfall of at least $5 billion in next year's budget. And
Chicago faces a $217 million gap in its $5.6 billion budget for 2008. In
many cases, budget officials knew that the fast pace of housing-related
revenue growth in recent years wasn't sustainable, but the extent of the
slowdown has sometimes surprised them. Unlike the federal government,
states and local governments generally balance their budgets. That means
sudden revenue shortfalls can translate into serious cutbacks in
spending plans. —Amy Merrick, The Wall Street Journal.
Read the entire article.
AGA Today is Brought to
You by Becker CPA Review
 The
CPA Exam isn't easy.
Paying for
Becker CPA Review is.
If you’re a federal employee, you can prepare for the CPA Exam with the
leading exam prep provider—Becker CPA Review—at a dramatic tuition
discount (Contract # GS-02F-0105R). You may even qualify for full
tuition reimbursement. Contact us at 1-877-CPA-EXAM or
Becker CPA Review or e-mail
Monica Callahan to learn more about this career defining
opportunity.
Study Says More than Half of
Accounting Students Admit to Cheating
Accounting majors are just as likely to cheat in college as other business
students, according to a new study. The academic study, titled
Do Accounting Students Cheat? A Study Examining Undergraduate Accounting
Students' Honesty and Perceptions of Dishonest Behavior,
surveyed 569 undergraduate business majors, including 294 undergraduate
accounting students, from seven universities in Georgia, Mississippi and
Texas. The study set out to find out if students who were accounting
majors were as likely to cheat or act in an academically dishonest
manner as were students with other business majors. The authors of the
study found that 54 percent of the accounting students they surveyed
admitted to cheating, compared to 52 percent of business majors overall.
—SmartPros.
Read the entire article.
Report: Federal Agencies
Fail to Pay Employment Taxes
Federal offices owe some $45 million in delinquent withholding taxes and
the Internal Revenue Service needs to do more to ensure that the
government lives up to its taxpaying obligations, according a report
issued Friday. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration,
who oversees IRS operations, also found that as of January this year
delinquent state and local government accounts totaled $254 million. "It
is outrageous that government entities are failing to pay their
employment taxes," Inspector General George J. Russell said in a
statement. "It is especially troubling that federal organizations are a
part of this problem. The IRS must develop comprehensive procedures to
remedy this inexcusable situation." —Jim Abrams, Associated Press.
Read the entire article.
AGA Today is Brought to You by AGA Corporate Partner  The
MIL Corporation
The MIL Corporation is seeking mid to senior level Budget Execution
Consultants. Ideal candidate will have knowledge of appropriation law,
budget execution experience, and a degree in Finance or Accounting, master's
degree preferred. Experience with PeopleSoft/Oracle, or other budget
formulation tool(s) is desired. For more information, visit
www.milcorp.com and to apply, email resumes to
jmortson@milcorp.com.
GASB Approves Technical Plan for Final
Third of 2007
The Governmental Accounting Standards
Board (GASB) has approved its
technical plan for the final four months of 2007. The plan includes two
new omnibus research projects. The first will consider incorporating into
GASB literature accounting and financial reporting guidance found in the
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ current or recently
modified Statements on Auditing Standards. The second will research
investment issues, focusing primarily on issues related to Statement No. 31,
Accounting and Financial Reporting for Certain Investments and for External
Investment Pools. The plan anticipates, in addition to continued
deliberation of projects on the GASB’s current technical agenda, issuance of
a Statement addressing accounting for land and other real estate held as
investments by endowments and release of the 2007–2008 edition of the
Comprehensive Implementation Guide. Meetings including a public hearing
and a user roundtable to obtain feedback on proposals in the Exposure Draft,
Accounting and Financial Reporting on Derivative Instruments, are also
scheduled. —GASB.
AGA Advertising Opportunities!
Advertise in AGA's electronic newsletters—TOPICS and AGA Today!
Get maximum exposure and build your brand.
Find out what's available in an upcoming issue.
Click here for all the information you need to run your ad. Or, you can
contact April Force Pardoe.
|
