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. GAO's new CPE guidance will be discussed. Earn 2 CPE hours in accounting and auditing. 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.

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.

May 2, 2005 • 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

Ex-IRS Commissioner Offers Tips on Measuring Performance
A former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) believes that personnel reform in the federal government must be accompanied by well-developed measurement systems. Charles Rossotti, who led the agency from 1997 to 2002, said the U.S. Departments of Defense and Homeland Security should look carefully at the systems they are using to measure employee and organizational performance as they work to overhaul their personnel frameworks. Rossotti was at the helm of the IRS when Congress passed the legislation that reorganized the agency, increased taxpayer protections and added personnel flexibilities. "You've got to be very careful to be sure you're measuring what you really want to measure rather than just what's easy to measure," Rossotti said during a recent luncheon hosted by the Partnership for Public Service. Rossotti said the IRS attempted to measure performance by using enforcement statistics, such as "how many dollars or how many cases you did of seizing property or auditing or generating audit assessments." The system backfired, he said, because such measures became "an overwhelming driver of what everybody did at the IRS." Rossotti said the system became "unbalanced" and led to "some really, really crazy things." —David McGlinchey, Government Executive. Click here to read the entire article.

Corporate Lies and Crooked Accounting Come to Big Screen
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, a documentary that opened Friday in theaters nationwide, tells the inside story of one of history's greatest business scandals, in which top executives of America's seventh largest company walked away with more than $1 billion while investors and employees lost everything. Using insider accounts and incendiary corporate audio and videotapes, director Alex Gibney shows the personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy. Early screenings of the documentary in Houston, the former headquarters of Enron, received standing ovations, according to the Houston Chronicle. To learn more about the movie, click here.

GAO Issues New CPE Guidance for Government Auditors
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued new continuing professional education requirements for government auditors, updating guidance last issued in 1991. The new rules go into effect June 30, 2005, although earlier adoption is encouraged. One of the major changes includes a partial exemption for auditors who are only involved in performing field work, but not planning, directing or reporting on the audit or attestation engagement, and who charge less than 20 percent of their time annually to GAGAS audits and attestations. The new guidance says they must earn 24 CPE hours over two years in government auditing, the government environment or “the specific and unique environment in which the audited entity operates” but exempts them from the rest of the 80-hour CPE requirement. An expanded and updated list of subjects and topics that can satisfy the 24-hour and 80-hour CPE requirements are also included in the new guidance. For more information, click here. 

Report: Distracted SEC Failed to Find Mutual Fund Abuses
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) failed to uncover trading abuses throughout the mutual fund industry that cost investors billions because it had other priorities, congressional investigators have found. The GAO, in an April 22 report, said the SEC's inspectors should have detected the market-timing abuses prior to September 2003, when New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer brought the violations to light and regulators began an industrywide crackdown. The chairman and the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee seized on the GAO report to roundly criticize the SEC. "The SEC was years late in uncovering these massive abuses that are nothing short of theft," panel chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-WI, said in a statement. "The SEC must take a stronger position on finding, preventing and punishing abuses by insiders, or Congress will be forced to take another look at how mutual funds are examined and regulated." —SmartPros. Click here to read the entire article.

Boston, Union Launch Housing Relief Fund for City Workers
Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and a major city workers union have started a relief fund to help Boston employees pay for the high cost of housing in the city they are required to live in. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, will give money to qualifying members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) to supplement first-time home purchases, rent and mortgage payments, or emergency housing needs. Many city employees are required to live in Boston, where housing costs are often higher than in suburban communities. The city is initially pitching in $525,000 and has agreed to contribute a nickel for every hour worked by a Boston member of AFSCME. —Madison Park, The Boston Globe. Click here to read the entire article.

AGA Today is brought to you by UMUC

Master of Science in Financial Management and Information Technology
New! The MS in Financial Management and Information Systems is a new graduate degree designed for mid-career professionals that integrates technology, applications in the workplace, current events, and content relevant to the needs of employers and practitioners. With many courses and study options, UMUC helps you fit a master's degree into your life. University of Maryland University College, an accredited university, is the flexible way to specialize in finance and information systems. No GRE or GMAT required for master's programs. Call 800.888.UMUC or visit www.umuc.edu/aga for information.

Labor, State Earn Praise for Performance Reports
An independent organization honored the U.S. Departments of Labor and State for strong annual performance reports, and noted that, in general, agencies are doing a better job reporting on their goals and performance. George Mason University's Mercatus Center, which has issued scorecards on agency performance reports for the past five years, presented the awards, along with Comptroller General David M. Walker. The 1993 Government Performance and Results Act requires agencies to issue annual reports on goals and performance, and the Mercatus Center rates them on leadership, transparency and documentation of performance.  "We decided to examine and assess quality of performance reports because if you don't have good reporting, it's very difficult to make decisions based on performance. Without good performance reporting, we're flying blind," said Jerry Ellig, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center. For the first time, the center gave out awards to agencies. Labor won first place for overall reporting, followed by State. Transportation and Veterans Affairs tied for third. Labor won an award for leadership, and State won for transparency. "[State] has done a lot better job of defining outcomes and has shown steady improvement for several years," said Ellig. Chris Burnham, State's chief financial officer, said, “It's nice to get a little pat on the back once in a while.” —Kimberly Palmer, Government Executive. Click here to read the entire article.

Federal Accounting Corner—Continuing Resolutions
Congressional authority can come with or without Treasury warrants. Appropriations and transfers usually are accompanied by a warrant, while estimates, such as reimbursements and recoveries, do not. All authority has to be recognized in the budgetary accounts, but only the warrant (or, in rare cases, a receivable for the warrant) is recognized in the proprietary accounts. When Congress does not pass the appropriations in time for the start of the new fiscal year, it frequently passes a continuing resolution, which provides agencies with limited authority to carry on current operations. Because a continuing resolution is supposed to be a short-term, stop-gap measure, Treasury does not fund it with warrants, but rather waits for the actual appropriation law to be passed. Treasury permits agencies to disburse funds into a negative cash position when this is due to a continuing resolution. The guidance from the Standard General Ledger is contradictory. —Simcha Kuritsky, CGFM, CPA. Click here to read the entire article.

AGA Today is brought to you by the Public Auditor's Office, U.S. Northern Mariana Islands

Work in the Tropics
The Public Auditor's Office in the U.S. Northern Mariana Islands is seeking 3 experienced audit managers to work in its Saipan office. Yellow Book experience would be a plus. Relocation and housing benefits are provided. Visit www.opacnmi.com for more information

Homeland Security Management Still 'High Risk,' GAO Says
Integrating and transforming agencies into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) continues to be a "high-risk area" for the government with "serious consequences" for national security, according to GAO. Despite "real and hard-earned progress," the department has significant challenges to overcome in all of its management areas, GAO said in a recent report. Ongoing challenges include providing focused management, monitoring transformation and integration, improving strategic planning, managing human capital, strengthening financial management infrastructure, establishing an information technology management framework, managing acquisitions, and coordinating research and development. The report noted that it can take 5 to 7 years to successfully transform large public and private organizations. "While it is understood that a transformation of this magnitude takes time, and that DHS's immediate focus has been on its homeland security mission, we see the need for DHS to increase its focus on management issues," GAO said. "This is important not only to DHS itself, but also to the nation's homeland security efforts, because, in addition to managing its own organization, DHS plays a larger role in managing homeland security and in coordinating with the activities of other federal, state, local, and private stakeholders." —Chris Strohm, Government Executive. Click here to read the entire article.

Accounting Grad Salaries Up 3.9 Percent
Average salary offers to new college graduates are climbing at a steady pace, according to the spring salary survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. The business disciplines fared especially well. Accounting graduates posted a 3.9 percent increase to their average starting salary offer since last spring, raising it to $43,809. Also, graduates with business administration/management degrees saw their average jump 3.2 percent, boosting it to $39,448. Salary offers to economics/finance graduates increased 5.1 percent, bringing their average starting salary offer to $42,802. Many of these grads were offered financial/treasury analysis positions, which averaged $44,825. —SmartPros. Click here to read the entire article. For more information, click here.

GASB Issues Concepts Statement on Communication Methods
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has issued a Concepts Statement related to communication methods. Concepts Statement No. 3, Communication Methods in General Purpose External Financial Reports That Contain Basic Financial Statements, clarifies the relationship of basic financial statements, notes to basic financial statements, and supporting information presented with basic financial statements within the framework of general purpose external financial reporting. It provides a conceptual basis for selecting communication methods to present items of information within general purpose external financial reports that contain basic financial statements. These communication methods include recognition in basic financial statements, disclosure in notes to basic financial statements, presentation as required supplementary information, and presentation as supplementary information. It also clarifies the roles and responsibilities of the preparer, the user and the GASB for the effective communication of information. Concepts Statement 3 (order code GC03) may be ordered on the GASB’s website or by phoning 800.748.0659.

GASAC Comments on Derivatives and Hedging Project
The Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council (GASAC) recently discussed developing a standard related to derivatives and hedging at an April 4-5 meeting at GASB’s Norwalk, CT offices. Members talked about three options for recognizing and reporting changes in fair value, although no agreement was reached. The options discussed were: recognizing a gain or loss in the change statements, adjusting the carrying value of the related asset or liability, and showing a deferred item in the statement of net assets. Also, David Bean, GASB’s director of research, reported that staff are working on an implementation guide for the OPEB statements. The guide should have be available in early July. —Sharon R. Russell, CGFM, AGA’s representative to GASAC. Click here to read Russell’s highlights of the meeting.

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© Association of Government Accountants 2005

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