November 7, 2011 • News from the Profession

AGA Today is Brought to You by AGA Corporate Partner Clifton Gunderson
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State and Local News

NY Group Seeks Local Government Mandate Relief
A coalition of New York advocacy groups has put out a six-point plan they say would help relieve local governments from state mandates. Labor unions signaled they're ready to aggressively fight the proposal. The supporters of the proposal—including the state Business Council, Farm Bureau, School Boards Association, the Westchester County Association and seven others—said the plan would help governments and school districts live under the state's new 2 percent property-tax cap, which takes effect Jan. 1. "I think we're already seeing some of the difficulties that local communities are having in trying to operating under the cap, and we need to have this kind of local relief available to them," said Heather Briccetti, acting president of the Business Council. The plan outlines six major steps the groups want to see Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature take. Among them are new, less-generous pension plans for new public workers, reform of a law that requires multiple contractors on construction projects and changing the state's arbitration laws for union negotiations. —WGRZ. Read more.

California Governor Shuts Government Transparency Website
Gov. Jerry Brown has shut down the government transparency website created by his predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, as a repository for financial disclosure statements and other records. A note on the website, www.transparency.ca.gov, says information once available on the site can be found on other state websites and furnishes the links. But open government advocates objected to the website's closure, claiming citizens will find it more difficult to track spending. Many of the documents contained on the website – including information about state contracts, audits and salaries – can be found on other sites. But the transparency site, which was created in 2009 and shut down Tuesday, also included travel expense claims submitted by senior agency officials and employees of the Governor's Office. Brown's office said Wednesday that travel records can be requested under California's Open Records Act. Elizabeth Ashford, a spokeswoman for the Democratic governor, cited the time and cost of coping and uploading those documents. —David Siders, The Sacramento Bee. Read more.

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Federal News

Budget Director: Stop Beating Up on Federal Workers
The White House budget director has a message for federal employees: Don't take it personally if you don’t get a pay raise soon. Office of Management and Budget Director Jacob J. Lew said it’s too soon to know whether federal employees should expect a pay bump in fiscal 2013 after a two-year pay freeze, or whether they might need to start paying more for their benefits. But he did say that Washington—and the country—should stop using federal employees as scapegoats in conversations about federal largesse. “I think that it’s sometimes misunderstood as a vote of confidence on federal workers as opposed to a budgetary necessity,” Lew said. “Wherever we go, on whether we can afford a pay raise or not, I think it’s important for federal workers not to be treated as if they’re the problem. They’re working hard, they’re doing extraordinarily important work, and I don’t think they get enough respect.” —Ed O’Keefe, The Washington Post. Read more.

DoD Performance Group: Rate Civilian Employees as Pass or Fail
A Defense Department working group on performance management has recommended that all civilian employees be rated on a pass-fail system and that supervisors provide constant feedback to employees about their performance. But at least one expert said the group's report, called "New Beginnings," falls far short of what is necessary, and that the pass-fail system is a bad idea. "The idea of pass-fail has been used a number of times, and was rejected years ago," said Howard Risher, a consultant on federal pay and performance issues. "Usually, only a small number of people ever fail. So you end up with no consequences associated with ratings." Congress in 2009 ordered Defense to come up with a new "fair, credible and transparent" performance management system to replace the controversial National Security Personnel System (NSPS), which Congress directed to be terminated. —Stephen Losey, Federal Times. Read more.

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Private Sector News

Gender Gap on Wages Slow to Close
First, there was the “mancession” that made the downturn much worse for men. Then, what my colleague Catherine Rampell has called the “he-recovery,” which has put more men than women back to work. What has remained consistent is that women remain on the wrong side of the wage gap. Even with the same college and professional degrees, men earn more than women. And among so-called creative class workers like architects, teachers, artists, engineers, bankers and journalists, men earn much more than women, even though more women hold such jobs. It’s similar at the bottom end of the scale. According to a report issued Thursday by the United States Government Accountability Office, a higher proportion of women finish high school than men, a milestone that is a minimum requirement for any job mobility. Women — especially younger women — are also completing bachelor’s degrees at higher rates than men. Yet they represent a higher proportion of low-wage workers, defined in the report as those who earn hourly wage rates that put them in the bottom 20 percent of the work force. —Mokoto Rich, The New York Times. Read more.

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Accounting Standards News

New GASB Bound Editions Now Available
The 2011-2012 editions of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's (GASB) annual bound editions are now available. The three titles—the Codification, Original Pronouncements and the Comprehensive Implementation Guide—may be ordered individually or at a discount for two- and three-title sets. Additional information is available at www.gasb.org by clicking on the Store tab.

Federal Budget Issues Focus of Nov. 16 Symposium
AGA Executive Director Relmond Van Daniker, DBA, CPA, is set to speak at the Nov. 16 fall symposium of the American Association for Budget and Program Analysis. The symposium theme is "Austerity: Budget, Analysis and the Great Recession," and the event is designed to bring budget and program professionals together across government and the private sector to share strategies related to fiscal constraints, agency priorities and transparency expectations. The conference is set for 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Capital Hilton Hotel at 16th and K Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. Register and find the latest information.

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