Highlights
Training
Opportunities
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for a Job?
NLC Early Registration
Rates End Today
Registering today for AGA's Fifth Annual National
Leadership Conference will save you $100. Registration rates go up
tomorrow, so there is no time to waste. Check out the Registration
Brochure for the conference, set for Feb. 12–13 in Washington,
D.C. The brochure includes a list of the featured speakers, education
sessions and events. You can also get information about registration,
hotel accommodations, travel discounts and more.
Register online
View the brochure
Print the registration form (PDF)
Assessing Risk and
Controls Focus of Upcoming 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 sponsoring an audio conference worth 2 CPE hours,
addressing risk and internal control issues. Speakers include
Frank
W. Crawford, CPA, president, Crawford & Associates, P.C.,
Certified Public Accountants, and chair, AICPA Government Expert Panel
and
Oklahoma Society of CPAs Government Accounting and Auditing Committee;
and Arthur A. Hayes, CGFM, CPA, CFE, director,
Division of State Audit, Office of the Comptroller of the Treasury,
State of Tennessee, who has chaired and served on various committees
and task forces for AGA, GFOA, Southeastern Intergovernmental
Audit Forum and AICPA. Join us from 2 – 3:50 p.m. EST, Feb. 28
for a lively, open discussion. Cost is $249 per site (unlimited
attendance) before Feb. 23, and $299 thereafter. Register online. Visit the
AGA website for the audio conference
schedule.
Get to Know Your AGA
Corporate Partner
AOC Solutions Inc. (AOC) provides a unique blend of management
consulting services and information technology products that enable its
clients to accomplish their business objectives. AOC delivers highly
credentialed professionals to add the breadth of experience and
knowledge required in today’s demanding business environment. AOC
Solutions core areas of expertise include:
- Financial Operations Evaluation and Change
Management
- SGL, Systems, Account Standards and
Reporting Compliance Support (FFMIA)
- Improper Payments Reviews and Monitoring
Support
- OMB Circular A-123 Internal Control
Assessments and Program Monitoring Support
- Financial Statements Preparation and
Analysis
- Accounting Policy and Procedures
Development
Founded in 1996, AOC Solutions is a small
business and service-disabled veteran-owned company, which ensures its
customers achieve cost, time and quality advantages.
For more information contact:
Frank Sullivan, CGFM
Vice President, Program Development
AOC Solutions
14151 Newbrook Drive
Chantilly, VA 20151
703.628.7321
fsullivan@aocsolutions.com
www.aocsolutions.com
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January 22, 2007• News from the Profession
AGA Today is
Brought to You by AGA Corporate Partner Clifton Gunderson
 Clifton
Gunderson's DC office is 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
AGA Comments on
Federal Financial Management Structure
AGA's Financial Management Standards Board (FMSB) sent comments
on the exposure draft about the Federal Financial Management Common
Government-wide Accounting Classification Structure (CGAC structure)
issued by the Financial Systems Integration Office (FSIO). The FMSB
stated that it "agreed with the concept of standardizing the CGAC
structure because it will foster universal understanding among users;
ease transition to new systems and software; and aid in aggregation and
comparison of data across the government." The Jan. 19 letter went
on to say, "Overall, the committee and their support contractors
have done an excellent job in identifying current data inconsistencies
in financial systems and have proposed an excellent set of suggestions
for standardizing what can be standardized in financial systems."
—FMSB. Read
the entire letter or view the CGAC Comment Template.
Budget Reform Pact May
Lead to a More Transparent Albany
It sounds logical enough: New York State should be required to
pass balanced budgets. The budget should not include blank checks to
state officials, in the form of giant lump sums to be divvied up later
in secret. And lawmakers should have to explain the fiscal impact of
the changes they make to the budget. It has not been standard practice
in Albany, though. So when Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the leaders of the
Legislature announced that they had agreed to legislation to do those
things and more, they described them as “sweeping reforms”
for the state’s budget process. —Michael Cooper, The
New York Times. Read the entire article.
Ph.D. Shortage: Business
Schools Seek Professors
Jean Wyer is a seasoned recruiter
at PricewaterhouseCoopers, but a recent headhunting request took her
aback. Business schools were calling on her not to hire their
graduates, but rather to help them find accounting professors. That
experience showed "just how dire the shortage of accounting Ph.D.s
is becoming," says Dr. Wyer, a principal at PwC. "What
terrifies me as a practitioner is the possibility that some schools may
decide to stop having accounting majors if they can't find enough
qualified people to teach." The growing shortage of doctoral
graduates from business schools is indeed worrisome. The accounting
field is especially feeling the supply-demand pinch. But other
disciplines, such as finance and management,xv are suffering from a
scarcity of Ph.D.s, too, as they try to replace professors who are
retiring or moving into corporate and consulting jobs. —Ron
Alsop, The Wall Street Journal. Read the entire article.
AGA Today is
Brought to You by AGA Corporate Partner
Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Company
 Corporate
Partner Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Company is pleased to announce the
formation of a new affiliate focused solely on expanding the
firm’s federal financial management and IT practice,
Watkins Meegan Government Services. Call Susan
Miller at (301) 654-7555 to learn more about our expanded services or
visit us on the web at www.wmgsllc.com.
Federal Accounting Corner: Charts of Accounts
from Around the World
For the past decade, there has been a concerted effort
by accountants around the world to formulate more meaningful government
financial statements. Here in the U.S., the federal accounting
community has placed a great deal of emphasis on creating a Standard
General Ledger (SGL) that can easily be used to produce statements. But
how did other countries structure their charts of accounts? Certainly
their intended audience requires similar information to ours. We're
going to compare the SGL of the U.S. with some other countries. For
ease of comparison, only two other countries will be used, whose
accounting rules are similar to those of the U.S.: Australia and
Canada. —Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM, CPA. Read the entire column.
Washington
Working on State, Local Performance Audits
Washington's audit teams are working on the first wave
of 30 performance audits, with targets ranging from big-ticket agencies
like education and transportation to more hidden facets of state and
local government, such as use of car pools and first-class air travel.
This broad style of auditing, created by citizen initiative in late
2005, offers the country's most independent and extensive system of
probing how public dollars are being spent, said state Auditor Brian
Sonntag, CGFM, a member of AGA's Olympia Chapter. Initiative 900
includes its own financing, a sliver of the state sales tax that
generates about $10 million a year for the audits. That means the
auditor doesn't have to ask the Legislature or governor for the money.
—David Ammons, The Associated Press. Read
the entire article.
Read a
research report on Washington's performance reporting effort
conducted by AGA's Corporate Partner Advisory Group. The report
documents the initial actions taken to implement the provisions of
Initiative 900.
AGA Today is Brought to You by the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission
 Accountant/Systems Accountant
USNRC seeks Accountant/Systems Accountant for Rockville, Maryland.
Multiple positions performing a wide range of accounting or system
accounting functions. Bachelor's Accounting or related w/min. 1 yr.
exp. in performing general accounting duties. Apply: www.nrc.gov/who-
we-are/employment.html , ref. #OCFO-2007-0003. Deadline: 2/9/07.
EOE-M/F/D/V. U.S. citizenship.
Auditors Find Customs, Border Agency
Violated Financial Rules
U.S. Customs and Border Protection broke three laws and
regulations related to financial management during fiscal 2006,
according to an audit report released earlier this week. Auditor KPMG
found that CBP did not comply with the 2002 Federal Information
Security Management Act, the 1996 Federal Financial Management
Improvement Act and the 2002 Improper Payments Information Act, the
Homeland Security Department's inspector general stated. The IG
criticized CBP's financial reporting and said the agency's problems
"could have a direct and material effect" on future financial
statements. —Jonathan Marino, Government Executive.
Read the entire article.
Big Four Firms Ranked
on Best Companies List
Google Inc. may be the best company to work for in the U.S., but
the nation's Big Four accounting firms have something to offer too,
according to Fortune magazine. Fortune released its 2007 "100 Best
Companies to Work For" list earlier this week. The nation's four
largest accounting firms, known as the Big Four, are sprinkled
throughout the list: Ernst & Young (25), PricewaterhouseCoopers
(58), Deloitte & Touche Tohmatsu (76) and, making its first
appearance on the list, KPMG (97). What makes them so great? Fortune
highlights each firm's special perks. Ernst & Young installed a
program that caters to senior staff (that complements its People First
culture). PricewaterhouseCoopers gets kudos for financially assisting
43 of its employees who were impacted by Hurricane Katrina. KPMG
matches 401(k) contributions to 75 cents per employee up to 5 percent.
Deloitte offered extra vacation days to all 35,000 employees as a thank
you for reaching record revenues. —SmartPros. Read the entire
article.
Last
Week to Register Early for Jan. 31 Compliance Technologies Audio
Conference
NASACT, in conjunction with AGA and ALGA, is planning a Jan. 31 audio
conference, "Managing Internal Control with Compliance
Technologies."
Speakers are Steve Allison, CGFM, chair of the
Multi-State Consortium on
Internal Control of the National Association of State Comptrollers,
Deloitte's Rob Garagiola and Julia P. Burns,
CGFM, director of the Quality Assurance Bureau, Office of the
Comptroller, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Earn 2 CPE hours at the
audio conference, set for 2 – 3:50 p.m. Jan. 31. Cost is $249 per
site (unlimited attendance) before Jan. 26, and $299 afterward. Register
today
AGA Recognizes
Government Leaders with Prestigious Awards
AGA's National Awards Committee is honored to announce the
recipients of the 2007 Leadership Awards. These awards will be
presented at the Fifth Annual National Leadership Conference, set for
Feb. 12 – 13 in Washington, D.C. Please join us in extending
our warm congratulations to all of our distinguished recipients.
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