Highlights
CPE Opportunities
Take the CGFM Intensive Review Course and the CGFM Examinations at the PDC. Click here for more information.
PDC 2005 Registration Brochure Now Online
Join us for AGA’s 54th Annual Professional Development Conference & Exposition, to be held July 10 – 13, 2005 in Orlando, FL. 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 trends and lessons from the best in the business. The conference offers unparalleled opportunities to make valuable professional contacts, discuss challenges, discover creative solutions and access the latest tools you need to become more effective.
To download the brochure, click here. Or, if you prefer, you can view the education sessions on our website by clicking here.
Don’t miss this educational, fun and sun-filled event. Click here to register.
Audio Conference Planned for May 11: Yellow Book Update—What You Need to Know
AGA, NASACT and NALGA invite you to attend this audio conference on Wednesday, May 11, 2005 from 2 – 3:50 p.m. EST. Speakers will be Jeanette M. Franzel, CGFM, director, Auditing Standards and Corporate Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Marcia B. Buchanan, CGFM, assistant director for Auditing Standards, GAO; and Sam McCall, CGFM, City Auditor, City of Tallahassee, FL, and AGA National President-Elect. Two CPE hours in the area of accounting and auditing will be offered. The cost is $249 per site (UNLIMITED ATTENDANCE) if you register on or before Friday, May 6, 2005, and $299 thereafter. Click here to register. If you have questions regarding registration, please contact Julie Cupp at 800.AGA.7211. Questions regarding the program should be directed to Raymond Harris, CGFM.
Chapter Website Contest Begins
April 25
The judging for the chapter website award begins on Monday, April 25. Click here to view the website judging criteria.
Click here to view the current listing of chapter website URL addresses and groups (please review this information and contact Jenn Curtin if any changes need to be made).
Studying for the CGFM Examinations?
Be sure to order one of the study guides available for CGFM Exams 2 and 3 to help you prepare. Click here to learn more.
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. |
April 18, 2005 • News from the Profession
AGA Today is brought to you by AGA Corporate Partner Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Company
 Watkins, Meegan, Drury & Company, a large regional CPA firm, is currently seeking experienced professionals for its rapidly growing Government Services Group. Successful candidates will have 2 - 5 years experience in government accounting and consulting. BS in accounting or related field required; CPA, CIA, CISA, CGFM a plus. Click here to e-mail your resume.
Lawmakers Debate How to Split State, Local Security Funds
Homeland security decisions have raised some very divisive issues—from civil liberties to the U.S. treatment of immigrants. But the fur really begins to fly when Congress considers questions such as this: Why would the fire department in tiny Plankinton, SD, population 567, need $52,688 in homeland security money for new fire equipment? Two congressional committees, one in the Senate and one in the House, are trying to decide how to divide homeland security money among states and communities. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, legislators from rural and sparsely populated areas have succeeded in arguing that their states should be guaranteed some portion of the money. But elected officials from states such as New York, as well as the Bush administration, have long argued that funds should be apportioned according to the terrorism risk. As it stands, Wyoming, which is not on anybody's short list of ground-zero targets, receives $37.74 per resident, and South Dakota gets $26.32 per capita. Meanwhile, New York gets $5.41, and California—another high-threat state, with targets such as Los Angeles International Airport and the Golden Gate Bridge—receives $4.97. —John Mintz, The Washington Post. Click here to read the entire article.
Corporate Season Tickets No Longer a Given, Thanks to SOX
Nothing personal against the Washington Nationals, said Michael L. McDonald, a vice president of Fairchild Corp., which sells aircraft parts and sports and leisure apparel. But the McLean, VA company has no plans to buy Nationals season tickets to entertain current and prospective clients, as many other companies are doing. "While several of the Fairchild executives, including myself, are personally interested in the Washington Nationals, we cannot conceivably rationalize the use of corporate assets for season tickets," McDonald said. No doubt, the lower grandstand at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium will be packed with corporate executives wooing prized customers this inaugural season. But in this age of corporate accountability—and in a town where Sarbanes-Oxley, the strict corporate accountability law that has given rise to new rules, might beat Nationals Manager Frank Robinson in a name-recognition contest—companies are debating whether hot tickets and cold beer are the way to win over customers. Only a few years ago, Fairchild was spending about $100,000 annually to rent a 16-seat skybox at the Redskins' FedEx Field. Those days are over for good, said McDonald, the company's controller. "Any public company is going to receive some scrutiny when it comes to expenses of this nature. It's just the way things are changing." —Bill Brubaker, The Washington Post. Click here to read the entire article.
Congress Targets States' Medicaid Accounting Tactic
This year, as they have done for many years past, California officials will use an accounting strategy that will yield nearly $2 billion more in federal Medicaid payments than the state might otherwise be entitled to. It goes something like this: California's cash-strapped counties, public university system and government hospitals scrape together $1.9 billion to send to Sacramento, ostensibly as a local contribution to the Medicaid health program for hospitalization and the uninsured. That money is then returned to the localities, but state bookkeepers continue to carry the funds on their balance sheet. Then the state asks the federal government to provide matching funds, not only for the state's Medicaid expenditures but also for those local contributions. By so doing, California will increase its federal Medicaid match by nearly 9 percent—a boon to the Golden State at the expense of the federal taxpayer. States have used this bit of creative accounting for more than a decade, with the knowledge and approval of the federal government. But this year, such tactics are at the heart of the biggest budget battle in Washington, one that has pitted the Bush administration against the nation's governors and the Senate against the House. —Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post. Click here to read the entire article.
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Bush’s Social Security Campaign Carries Big Price Tag
The Bush administration's ongoing Social Security blitz is unusual in scale in the selling of a domestic policy, mobilizing the president and vice president, four Cabinet secretaries and 17 lesser officials. It also may be one of the most costly in memory, well into the millions of dollars, according to some rough, unofficial calculations. House Appropriations Committee Republicans have quietly asked the administration for an accounting of its "60 Stops in 60 Days" blitz. U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform Committee, formally asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) not only for the cost but also "whether the Bush Administration has crossed the line from education to propaganda." Waxman wrote in a letter to U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, "No one disputes the right of the President to make his policy recommendations known to Congress and the public. Yet there is a vital line between legitimately informing the public, as the President did in his State of the Union address, and commandeering the vast resources of the federal government to fund a political campaign for Social Security privatization." Administration officials do not deny the Social Security campaign constitutes an extraordinary legislative push, but, they say, the issue of Social Security's solvency demands no less. —Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post. Click here to read the entire article.
Website Lets Feds Tally Costs of Commuting
In an effort to increase teleworking, a new website allows federal workers to calculate how much money they spend commuting to work. The Telework Exchange Website calculates the annual amount a worker spends traveling to and from their job, the percentage of after-tax income spent, and the weight of the pollutants produced from a worker's commute. The site launch corresponds with the release of a survey that shows 20 percent of federal employees telework, a slight increase since some agencies started facing financial penalties for failing to make the option. —Daniel Pulliam, Government Executive. Click here to read the entire article.
Most Senior Executive Service Members Rated Highly
About three-fourths of Senior Executive Service (SES) members received the highest rating available under their performance appraisal systems in fiscal 2003, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has reported, and more than half of them received what OPM termed “substantial” performance bonuses. The results do not reflect the requirements of the new SES pay-for-performance system that went into effect late last year, which requires agencies make “meaningful distinctions” in the performance ratings and pay of their SES members. OPM noted that many agencies have received certification to increase the base pay of their top-performing SESers and that “we fully expect the results of the 2004 rating cycle to reflect the stringent terms and conditions of an agency's certification—particularly as a condition precedent for its renewal in 2005.” Overall, the percentage of career SES members rated at the highest level (under three-, four- or five-level rating systems) was 74.5 percent in fiscal 2003—virtually the same as the 74.6 rate in 2002. The Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Transportation departments gave the top ratings to all of their career execs, while the Department of Defense, the agency with the most SESers, gave top ratings to 96 percent.—FedWEEK. For a look at the breakdown by agency, click here.
Study: Auditors Tolerate Footnote Errors
Auditors are more likely to tolerate errors when they are in the footnotes, as opposed to in the main body of a financial report, according to a study by Cornell University and Bentley College, the Wall Street Journal reported. The study tested the "prediction that auditors are willing to tolerate more error in disclosed numbers than in recognized numbers" and found that "information location influences reliability." One experiment asked auditors how they would handle the underestimated cost of employee cost options. Some were told the error was on the company's income statement, and some were told the error was in a footnote only. Auditors were more likely to call for a correction when the error was in the income statement. —SmartPros. Click here to read the entire article.
Tax Abuse Rampant in Nonprofits, IRS Says
Charities and other nonprofits exempted from taxes because they serve a public purpose have become a hotbed of tax evasion and abuse, according to the head of the Internal Revenue Service. "We can see that tax abuse is increasingly present in the sector," and unless the government takes effective steps to curb it, such organizations risk "the loss of the faith and support that the public has always given to this sector," Internal Revenue Commissioner Mark W. Everson said in a letter to the Senate Finance Committee detailing abuses his agency has found. Everson said that the IRS is finding problems in virtually every type of tax-exempt organization. Nonprofits include not only charities, but colleges and universities, many hospitals, pension plans, trade associations and think tanks. In some cases fraud and abuse are committed by the nonprofit itself, such as when a charity is established to benefit its main donor; in other cases, the nonprofit acts an enabler for tax-shelter promoters, such as when a municipality or union takes a fee to participate in a deal that allocates "profits" to it and losses to wealthy individuals. Everson said in his letter that nearly half of the IRS's list of 31 major abusive tax-shelter schemes "have the potential to involve tax-indifferent parties," as the IRS calls entities that don't have to worry about paying taxes. —Albert B. Crenshaw, The Washington Post. Click here to read the entire article.
CFO Council Seeks Info on Stopping Improper Payments
The Chief Financial Officers’ Council is looking for information from the private sector on ways to prevent improper payments in federal government benefit and entitlement programs.The council would like the comments to address the programs identified in the Office of Management and Budget report, Improving the Accuracy and Integrity of Federal Payments. Eliminating improper payments is a major focus of the President’s Management Agenda. E-mail comments by May 13 to James C. Thieme. To e-mail questions about the Request for Information, click here. An industry session on the Request for Information is set for 9 a.m. to noon April 26.
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