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-Ceftered
Government,” the PDC will provide technical training, emerging
trend snapshots and leadership secrets from the best in the business.
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
Audio Conference Set for Wednesday on
Performance Auditing
The audio conference is titled,
“Performance Auditing: Planning, Conducting and Reporting Results
in Today’s Environment.” Speakers include 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.
AGA, in conjunction with NASACT and NALGA, is offering the audio
conference, worth 2 CPE hours, at 2 - 3:50 p.m. EDT May 10. Cost is
$299 per site (unlimited attendance). Register online.
If you have any questions regarding
registration, please contact Maria
Lucas. Questions regarding the program content should be directed
to Raymond Harris.
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!
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
8,
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
FMSB
Comments
on GASB Pollution Remediation Proposal
AGA’s Financial Management
Standards Board (FMSB) has commented on the exposure draft (ED) of a
proposed statement of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board
(GASB) on Accounting and Financial Reporting for Pollution
Remediation Obligations. The FMSB was pleased to note that most of
its recommendations on the previous preliminary views document on
pollution remediation obligations were incorporated into the newly
exposed document. Read the entire letter.
Students Eager for
Federal Jobs, Unsure How to Get Them
College students are interested in federal jobs, but they
don't know enough about specific opportunities and agencies to pursue
them, a new study has found. Forty-two percent of college juniors and
seniors surveyed by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit
organization devoted to attracting young people to government service,
said they were extremely or very interested in working for the federal
government. Interest in federal service was nearly as high as that for
large private companies (49 percent) and small private companies (45
percent). And government work edged out nonprofit jobs (40 percent),
arguably the sector in the most direct competition for employees. But
only 13 of the almost 3,000 students surveyed said they felt extremely
or very knowledgeable about federal jobs. The report recommended that
agencies develop ongoing relationships with university faculty members
who can suggest jobs to their students, and educate students about the
practical advantages of federal jobs, including generous benefits. The
report came one day after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM),
which oversees recruitment efforts for the government as a whole,
launched its first television campaign to boost job applications.
—Karen Rutzick, Government Executive. Read more about the report.
Read more about OPM's ad campaign.
AGA Today is Brought to You by AGA
Corporate
Partner
Improving your performance to improve
your organization’s results.
The Graduate School, USDA provides
professional training and educational services to auditors and
financial managers in all levels of government. We offer a wide range
of studies in accounting, budgeting, financial management and
performance auditing, as well as customized development services to
help you create training that meets your organization’s unique
needs.
For more information on our Financial
Management curriculum, the Government Audit Training Institute, and our
other courses and services, call 888.744.GRAD or visit us on the Web at
www.grad.usda.gov.
San Diego Schools Plan Fraud
Hotline
At a time when government is under
intense scrutiny locally and nationally, the San Diego Unified School
District is putting its own conduct under a microscope. To promote
efficiency and to reduce waste and mismanagement, California's
second-largest school system is establishing a fraud hotline and a code
of ethics for employees and elected officials. The ethics initiative
also would include a training program to educate some 15,000 district
workers on issues ranging from appropriate use of procurement cards and
cellular phones to reporting gifts and conducting personal business on
the taxpayers' dime. “This is not about catching people, but
about preventing problems and making sure the dollars we allocate go to
kids and education,” said Jodi Smith, formerly of the Department
of Labor's antitrust division, who was hired to direct the effort.
—Maureen Magee, San Diego Union-Tribune. Read the entire article.
Five Steps to
Telecommuting Success
Thanks to technological advancements, telecommuting continues
to grow in the United States. Greater flexibility and a healthy
work/life balance are obvious benefits for workers. And, for employers,
telecommuting, either part time or full time, can retain employees.
However, many employers are still concerned that telecommuting won't
work for their firm. Whether you're an employee looking to convince
your boss of its benefits, or you're a manager who wants to make it
work, a successful full-time telework arrangement begins with five
important steps. —SmartPros. Read the entire
article.
Study: Generous
Benefits for Public Sector Hard to Maintain
The gap between private and public sector benefits is growing,
and revised accounting rules for government agencies could force
far-reaching changes to benefits for public employees, according to a
recent study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). The
study, published in the journal Health Affairs, noted an
increase in pressure to reform public sector benefit costs to conform
to shrinking budgets, but no significant changes have occurred. Laurie
Felland, an HSC researcher and coauthor of the report, said,
“Generally public employers avoided shifting higher health costs
to workers, but some workers paid to keep their generous health
benefits by forgoing wage increases.” New requirements from the
Governmental Accounting Standards Board could increase the pressure to
cut benefits costs, the study said, by requiring government entities to
properly record long-term liabilities associated with the costs of
health benefits for retirees.—FederalDaily and The
Partnership's Daily Pipeline. Read the study.
Federal Deficit Hawks
Take it to the Streets
In a shiny, new conference hall on Wilmington's fledgling
riverfront, a group of mostly elderly residents have gathered to hear
some ominous news about the nation's fiscal situation. Delaware Sen.
Tom Carper, a Democrat, is explaining the "theory of holes"
to the group. "When you find yourself in a hole, stop
digging," Sen. Carper says, adding that the federal government has
worked its way into a fiscal crevasse from which it may never surface.
His message was part of a shock-and-awe campaign
aimed at educating the public about the fiscal crisis facing the U.S.
While the economy is currently strong, some deficit hawks are
trying to sound alarm bells on Main Street with information about the
nation's $318 billion—and growing—budget deficit and, even
more worrisome, spending trends in the future, issues which aren't at
the top of anyone's worry list outside Washington. —Deborah
Solomon, The Wall Street Journal. Read the entire article.
OMB: Competition Key
to Consolidating Financial Systems
Public-private competitions will become compulsory for federal
agencies outsourcing their financial management systems under the Bush
administration's lines of business initiative, according to the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB is leading an effort to shut down
agencies' back-office information technology systems and move the work
to a handful of designated federal entities or the private sector.
Private sector competition for agency IT work is an important way of
keeping prices low and service satisfactory at cross-government service
centers, OMB has said. Competition must occur according to the dictates
of Circular A-76, which governs the administration's competitive
sourcing initiative to open thousands of federal jobs considered
commercial in nature to bids from contractors. — David Perera,
Government Executive. Read the entire article.
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