Highlights
Training Opportunities
Last
Week
to Register Early
for Dec. 12 Fraud Audio Conference
AGA, in conjunction with NASACT and ALGA, is pleased to announce its
upcoming audio conference,
Anatomy of Fraud: Case Examples of Greed, Collusion and Override of
Controls. The audio conference, worth 2 CPE hours, is set for 2 –
3:50 p.m., EST, Dec. 12.
Included in this audio conference will be some
remarkable work that uncovered major fraud in government, the private
sector and not-for-profit
organizations. Hear from two of the top presenters and investigators of
fraud, David L. Cotton, CGFM, CFE, CPA, Chairman of
Cotton & Co., and David R. Hancox, CGFM, CIA, Director
in the Division of State Government
Accountability, Office of the New York State Comptroller.
Cost is $249 per site (unlimited attendance) if you
register on or before Friday, Dec. 7, and $299 thereafter.
Register online or print the
registration form and fax it to 703.684.6933
View the entire audio conference schedule.
NLC Registration
Brochure Is Now Available
The registration brochure for AGA’s National Leadership
Conference is now available. The brochure includes a list of the
speakers, education sessions and events taking place at this year's
conference. You can also get information about registration, hotel
accommodations, travel discounts and more.
Interested in Being a Reviewer
for the CEAR Program?
AGA will offer free training for those interesting in reviewing
Performance and Accountability Reports (PARs) for federal agencies that
participate in our Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting
(CEAR) Program. The training, which requires
registration, is scheduled for 1:15 - 4 p.m. Dec. 17
at the U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Ave. SW, Washington,
D.C. AGA members Jonathan D. Breul, partner, IBM Global
Business Services, and John Hummel, CGFM, CPA, partner
and National Industry director, KPMG LLP, will provide instruction on
how to review reports and discuss the revised OMB Circular A-136 that is
used as a point of reference in preparing federal financial reports.
If you have questions, please contact
Eveanna Barry, AGA's director of Performance Reporting.
|
December 3,
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
Bush Makes Program Improvement
Requirements Permanent
The Bush administration has spent more than four years trying to improve
agency performance. Its efforts have attracted the interest of
lawmakers, but Congress has not acted to ensure that the current
approach to management continues after the president leaves office. So
President Bush sidestepped Congress by issuing an executive order that
formalizes the administration’s Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART)
methodology and adds bite to the Government Performance and Results Act
(GPRA) of 1993. Under the executive order issued Nov. 13, the Office of
Management and Budget will hold agency leaders and managers accountable
for program results and require them to use PART to account for program
performance, said Clay Johnson, deputy director for management at OMB.
The agency chief must approve program performance goals, plans for
accomplishing them and approaches to measure them, something GPRA never
called for, Johnson said. GPRA established a requirement for reporting,
but the executive order requires agencies to use that data to improve
their performance, said Marcus Peacock, deputy administrator at the
Environmental Protection Agency. “That is a big difference,” he said.
—Mary Mosquera, Federal Computer Week.
Read more.
Foreclosure Crisis to Pinch
Everyone: Mayors' Report
The foreclosure crisis is rippling far beyond threatening home ownership,
now robbing the economy of consumer purchases, governments of tax
revenue and workers of jobs, according to a new report. Commissioned by
the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the report puts specific numbers on the
broader impact and was released Nov. 27, as several of the nation's
mayors met at the MGM Grand in Detroit to discuss what to do about the
problem. The Detroit region ranks seventh in the nation in loss of
economic activity among metro areas with a hit of $3.2 billion because
of the foreclosure epidemic, the report states. Economic activity is
defined as the total value of goods and purchases. "The foreclosure
crisis is no longer just about mortgages," said Detroit Mayor Kwame
Kilpatrick, host of the conference. "Entire neighborhoods are being
negatively affected on several levels. This issue is now the No. 1
economic challenge of many major American cities." —Zachary Gorchow,
Detroit Free Press.
Read more.
AGA Today
is Brought to You by Becker CPA Review
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If you’re a federal employee, you can prepare for the
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Monica Callahan to learn more about this career defining
opportunity.
Walker to Speak on "A
Call for Stewardship"
Comptroller General of the United States, David
Walker, CPA, who heads the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO), is set to discuss the government's latest financial report
when it is released on Dec. 17. He will talk about the
government's overall fiscal condition and what can be done to turn
things around. GAO will release a new report that summarizes a variety
of ways—key national indicators, for example—to help reform government.
The event, set for 12:30 p.m. at the National Press Club in Washington,
D.C., will begin with lunch, followed by Walker's speech and a
question-and-answer session. The public is invited. Call Pat Nelson at
202.662.7539 or obtain tickets through the
National Press Club website.
Calif. Pushes Public-Private Public Works Partnerships
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signaled a
controversial push to engage private companies in the building and
management of state and local public works projects, proposing a
strategy widely employed in Canada, Europe and elsewhere.
In such partnerships, which could take a variety of forms, private
companies could finance, build and manage roads, schools, waste-water
treatment plants, ports, levees, hospitals and other projects. The
companies would rent the facilities to the government or collect fees
from users. Though public-private partnerships have been undertaken in
some other states and occasionally in California, such as in the
construction of San Diego's South Bay Expressway, state law does not
explicitly authorize or set rules for such deals. Until now,
Schwarzenegger's piecemeal efforts to involve the private sector in
state government generally have been opposed by lawmakers and labor
unions. But the governor is considering an ambitious proposal that would
institutionalize private-sector deals, and would need legislative
approval for it. —Michael Rothfeld, Los Angeles Times.
Read more.
Bush to Pay Feds 3 Percent Raise in 2008 Unless Congress Acts
President Bush has called for a 3 percent
federal employee pay raise for 2008, defying Congress’ intent to give a
3.5 percent raise. Bush said the government plans to pay out a 3 percent
raise in a Nov. 27 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, and
Senate President Robert Byrd, D-WV. But Congress is sure to pass a
spending bill that contains a 3.5 percent raise. The House already
passed such a bill, but the Senate must still pass the spending bill
that contains the pay raise. House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer,
D-MD, said Congress likely will approve the larger raise in December as
part of an omnibus spending package. The appropriations package will be
Congress’ top priority when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving
recess, Hoyer’s office said. If the
bill passes in December, employees would receive the higher raise
starting with the first pay period beginning after January. —Stephen
Losey, The Federal Times.
Read more.
Corporate America Making
Strides on Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance
The results of a recent study show that Corporate America is making marked
improvements in regulatory compliance despite persistent problems. The
same issues that dogged companies when the Sarbanes-Oxley Act first came
into effect three years ago—poor documentation of accounting procedures,
insufficiently trained accounting and finance staffs, and difficulty
closing the books at year-end—still flummox companies as they try to
comply with SOX today, according to reports from Compliance Week.
But the total number of such "material weaknesses," which must be
disclosed under Section 404 of the law, has plunged from 537 such
disclosures in Year One to only 173 in Year Three. "The data clearly
show that after three years, corporations are doing a much better job
identifying and remediating problems," said Matt Kelly, managing editor
of Compliance Week, who spearheaded the research. "Executives might not
like Sarbanes-Oxley," added Kelly, "but they're certainly getting better
at addressing its challenges." —SmartPros.
Read more.
Register Now for Friday
SEA Review Audio Conference
Learn how to be a
Service Efforts and Accomplishments (SEA) report reviewer by participating
in an audio conference, set for 2 - 3:50 p.m. EDT, Friday, Dec. 7.
Harold I. Steinberg, CGFM, CPA, AGA technical consultant, will
discuss the 16 criteria suggested by GASB that are used to review an SEA
report. Becoming a reviewer is a great way to learn more about the reporting
process and an opportunity to learn best practices from other governments.
Register here. If you have
questions, contact Eveanna Barry,
AGA's director of performance reporting.
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