Highlights
CPE
Opportunities
Looking
for a Job?
See You
in San Diego!
Make plans now to attend AGA’s
55th Annual Professional Development Conference & Exposition (PDC).
With the theme “Navigating the Way to Citizen-Centered
Government,” the PDC promises to be an excellent learning and
networking opportunity for government financial managers and
accountability professionals.
Education sessions will provide technical training, emerging trend
snapshots and leadership secrets from the best in the business.
AGA’s PDC also provides unparalleled opportunities to network,
exchange ideas with your peers and meet new friends.
Register today and secure your place at the government financial
management education event of the year!
• Register online
• Print
registration form to send by fax/mail (Adobe PDF)
• Visit
the conference website
May 10 Audio Conference
Set
AGA, in conjunction with the National Association of
State
Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT) and the National
Association of Local Government Auditors (NALGA), is offering a new
audio conference, “Performance Auditing: Planning, Conducting and
Reporting Results in Today’s Environment.” The audio
conference, worth 2 CPE hours, is set for 2 - 3:50 p.m. EDT May 10.
In the wake of corporate and government frauds and scandals,
accountability professionals conducting performance audits of
government programs and operations also find themselves under the
microscope of citizens and the managers they serve and audit. To
discuss the many complicated issues at the local, state and federal
government levels are Drummond Kahn, Director of Audit
Services, City of Portland, OR; Jerry Barber,
Assistant Comptroller, New York State Office of the State Comptroller;
and Pam Tumler, Senior Analyst, U.S. Government
Accountability Office, Denver, CO.
Cost is $249 per site (unlimited attendance) if you register on or
before Friday, May 5, 2006, and $299 afterward. Register online.
If you have any questions regarding
registration, please contact Maria
Lucas Questions regarding the program content should be directed
to Raymond Harris.
Slate of
National Officers Certified
AGA's National Nominating Committee has
filled all of the National Officer positions for the 2006-2007 program
year. The committee's nominees were not contested, and therefore the
slate was certified by the Bylaws & Procedures Committee. National
President-Elect is Richard L. Fair, CGFM, CPA and
National Treasurer-Elect is David R. Bennett, CGFM,
CPA. View
the entire slate of national officers.
Interested in the CGFM
Certification?
Sign up for AGA's special Intensive
Review Course and take the CGFM Examinations in June in San Diego. Don't miss this
opportunity to earn your CGFM!
|
March 27, 2006
• 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
Florida to
Link Teacher Pay To Students' Test Scores
A new pay-for-performance program
for Florida's teachers will tie raises and bonuses directly to pupils'
standardized-test scores beginning next year, marking the first time a
state has so closely linked the wages of individual school personnel to
their students' exam results. The effort, now being adopted by local
districts, is viewed as a landmark in the movement to restructure
American schools. Advocates say it could serve as a national model to
replace traditional teacher pay plans that award raises based largely
on academic degrees and years of experience. But teachers unions and
some education experts say any effort to evaluate teachers exclusively
on test-score improvements will not work, because schools are not
factories and their output is not so easily measured. —Peter
Whoriskey, The Washington Post. Read the entire article.
AICPA: More
Accounting
Students, but Fewer CPAs
Career goals and time constraints are two reasons accounting
graduates are not pursuing their CPA certificates, according to the
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The AICPA
has found that even though more college students are studying
accounting, many are not sitting for the uniform CPA Exam right away.
The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA), AICPA
and Thomson-Prometric Inc. commissioned a study that found the number
of candidates taking the CPA exam dropped almost 37 percent after the
introduction of the computerized version of the test in April 2004.
—AccountingWEB. Read the entire
article.
Grant
Thornton Cites AGA CFO Survey in House Testimony
 AGA
Corporate Partner Grant Thornton testified before a House Government
Reform subcommittee that most federal financial leaders favor the
Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Financial Management Line
of Business (FMLOB) initiative, but question how it will be executed.
Clifton A. Williams, CGFM, a member of AGA’s Washington, D.C.,
Chapter and a partner with Grant Thornton’s Global Public Sector,
presented the subcommittee with preliminary findings of the 2006 AGA
Federal Chief Financial Officers’ Survey. Williams told the the
House Subcommittee on Government Management, Finance and Accountability
that the respondents to this year’s AGA survey identified basic
issues that must be addressed for the FMLOB and Center of Excellence
concept to succeed.
AGA Today is Brought to You by the Foundation for
Accounting Education
 The
Government and Public School Audit Conference: Safeguarding the Public
Trust Conference
If you are a practitioner with public authorities, school
districts or other governmental entities as clients, you cannot afford
to miss this important conference. The enactment of major new
legislation will change the way that you do business. Understanding
these new rules is vital to ensure that you can perform your work with
competence, integrity, and objectivity. The May conference combines the
statutory requirements, regulatory issues, and standards essential in
the effective auditing of governmental entities. Register today.
A Bump on the Road to Fiscal Recovery
for States
State tax revenues registered their
weakest growth since September 2003 in the final months of last year,
signaling a blip in states’ gradual recovery from their worst
fiscal crisis since World War II. Tax collections grew 7.6 percent in
the last quarter of 2005, less than the previous quarter and less than
the same period a year before, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller
Institute of Government. Adjusted for inflation and tax changes, the
growth rate was only 0.9 percent between October and December, which is
the slowest adjusted growth in the last nine quarterly reports. —
Eric Kelderman, Stateline.org. Read the entire
article.
Federal Accounting
Corner: Billing for Reimbursable Advances
Treasury's Standard General Ledger (SGL) doesn't acknowledge it,
but it is a widespread practice among agencies nonetheless: billing
reimbursable clients for advances. There are a number of good business
reasons to do this, but what I'm going to focus on is how an agency can
account for it. —Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM, CPA. Read the entire column.
Many Utilities
Collect
for Taxes They Never Pay
Many electric utility companies across the nation are
collecting billions of dollars from their customers for corporate
income taxes, then keeping the money rather than sending it to the
government. The practice is legal in most states. The companies say it
is smart business. But some representatives of utility customers say
that the practice, which involves using losses from other subsidiaries
to reduce taxes owed, is not fair. They say that money that utilities
are required to collect for federal and state taxes—typically a
nickel on each dollar paid for electricity—should go for just
that, or not be included in electric bills. Otherwise, they argue,
these legal monopolies make more than they are authorized to, and other
taxpayers have to make up the difference in higher taxes or reduced
services. —David Cay Johnston, The New York Times. Read the entire article.
OPM Director Pushes
Part-time Work in Lieu of Retirement
Federal employees should be able to work fewer hours in their
later career, staving off full retirement, according to the Office of
Personnel Management (OPM) chief. OPM Director Linda Springer said she
wants part-time arrangements for longtime federal employees to become
common and easier to arrange, as a piece of a plan to cope with an
aging workforce in what she termed a "transformation of the
mindset." She said, "I don't think, personally, it has to be
a cliff," referring to the transition between full-time employment
and retirement. "Why can't we have people work 10 hours a week, 20
hours a week?" Part-time work, coupled with other flexible work
arrangements, was a focus of the operational plan OPM released last
week. The broader issue of retirement, as many federal employees are
becoming eligible to leave over the next several years, has been one of
Springer's themes since she took over the agency in June. — Karen
Rutzick, Government Executive. Read the entire article.
GASAC Discusses GASB
Projects
The Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council (GASAC),
which advises the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB),
discussed the GASB's Fund Balance Reporting Project and the Derivatives
Project at a March 9-10 meeting in Norwalk, CT. AGA’s
representative to GASAC, Sharon R. Russell, CGFM, CPA,
a member of AGA’s Montgomery Chapter, has written a memo outlining highlights of the meeting.
GASB Issues White Paper, Seeks
Technical
Bulletin Comments
 According
to a white paper released today by the Governmental Accounting
Standards Board (GASB), individuals and organizations who are
interested in the financial performance of state and local governments
have substantially different information needs than those who follow
the financial performance of for-profit entities. The white paper cites
several other crucial differences that generate user demand for unique
information. It also states that revenue collected by state and local
governments totaled $1.8 trillion, or 20 percent of the 2002 U.S.
gross domestic product, while state and local governments account for
12 percent of total U.S. employment. Download the
white paper.
Also, GASB encourages AGA members to comment on the
GASB’s proposed Technical Bulletin, Accounting and Financial
Reporting by Employers and OPEB Plans for Payments from the Federal
Government Pursuant to the Provisions of Medicare Part D. The
document provides guidance regarding the treatment of the federal
subsidy payments to governments that provide subscription drug coverage
to retirees who otherwise would be eligible to participate in the new
Medicare Part D program. April 17 is the deadline. Download the proposed
Technical Bulletin.
Read a plain-language article about the
proposal
Final Call for AGA Scholarship
Applications—March 31
Deadline
Are you or a family member pursuing
undergraduate or graduate studies in disciplines such as accounting,
auditing, budgeting, economics, finance, information technology, public
administration, etc.? If so, apply for a scholarship by March
31. Click here for high school applications. Click here for undergraduate/graduate
applications. Questions? Contact Rosanna Ortiz.
AGA
Advertising Opportunities!
Advertise in AGA's electronic
newsletters—TOPICS and AGA Today! Get maximum
exposure and build your brand. Click here for all the information you need to
run your ad! Or, you can contact AGA's Director of Communications,
Marie Force. |
