Highlights
CPE
Opportunities
Looking
for a Job?
Emerging Issues at FASAB, GASB
Subject of Audio Conference
Time is running out. Register by
July 28 and save! 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 Aug. 2 audio conference. Worth 2 CPE hours, the subject
is, "Accounting Concepts and Emerging Issues at the FASAB and
GASB." Speakers are FASAB Chair David Mosso,
Tom Allen, former chairperson of the
Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) and Mosso’s
planned successor at FASAB, and Robert Attmore,
current chairperson at GASB.
Join us from 2 – 3:50 p.m. EDT
Aug. 2. Cost is $249 per site if you register on or before
Friday, July 28, 2006 and $299 thereafter. Register online.
Chapters, Agencies Can Save with
Discounted Education Plan
Take advantage of a limited-time,
special offer exclusively for AGA chapters and
ADVANTAGE group membership agencies. Prior to
Friday, July 28, purchase three, four or five AGA
audio conferences
as a package and you will receive a 10 percent discount on the
early-bird
price. Purchase six or all seven AGA audio conferences
for a 15 percent discount. Read the schedule.
To register, contact Maria
Lucas at 800.AGA.7211, ext. 308, or mlucas@agacgfm.org
Download the registration form.
If you have questions about the audio
conferences, contact Raymond Harris,
CGFM, Director of Chapter Operations, at 800.AGA.7211,
ext. 339, or
rharris@agacgfm.org.
Registration Now for AGA's Internal Control & Fraud
Conference
Join us in Atlanta for AGA’s First National
Internal
Controls & Fraud Conference, to be held September 25-26, 2006, at
the Hyatt Regency Atlanta Hotel. The theme is, "Fraud Prevention
and Detection: The Newest Tools and Techniques." AGA has brought
together the best in the business: Matthew A. Jadacki, CGFM,
CPA, Special Inspector General for Gulf Coast Hurricane
Recovery, Comptroller General of the United States David M.
Walker, CPA, Arthur A. Hayes Jr., JD, MBA, CGFM, CPA, CFE,
Director, Division of State Audit, Comptroller of the
Treasury, State of Tennessee; inspectors general from several federal
agencies and more.
Register now and secure your place at
AGA’s newest educational and networking event!
Make Plans for AGA’s National
Performance Management Conference
Join us for AGA’s Second National
Performance Management Conference (PMC) – a-one-of-a kind event
focusing on state and local government performance reporting.
The PMC will bring together state and local government
professionals to share in education, networking and recognition of
government entities that have been honored with AGA’s Certificate
of Achievement in SEA Reporting.
The theme is, “Integrating Measurement with Management:
Making the Connection,” and it offers. Make a connection with
those defining and preparing reports, and those who can assist you in
preparing your own. This is your chance to learn best practices from
SEA award winners!
See you in October…
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July
24, 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
To Agency Insiders, Cyber Thefts Are No
Surprise
Every day, an electronic wall guarding
the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s servers is probed for holes
2,000 times by potential hackers and data thieves. The probes usually
can't get through that wall. But on the first weekend in June, a hacker
made it deep into one server, prompting an announcement late last month
that personal information on 26,000 Washington area employees,
contractors and retirees may have been compromised. To government
officials responsible for information security and to outside experts,
the intrusion—and several recent security incidents at other
agencies—was no surprise. For the past five years, the department
had received failing grades on a congressional report card for its
information-security practices. The overall grade for federal agencies
in 2005 was D-plus. In the past few weeks, the Agriculture incident was
joined by cases of potentially compromised data at Veterans Affairs,
Health and Human Services, the Federal Trade Commission, the Government
Accountability Office, Housing and Urban Development, the Navy and the
Energy Department. The State Department also suffered a series of
hacking attacks. — Zachary A. Goldfarb, The Washington Post.
Read the entire article.
Senators Advocate Database on Federal
Funding
Legislation that would require the
creation of an online database to track federal spending has won praise
from several key senators. “Transparency is a prerequisite to
oversight and financial control,” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)
testified at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee’s Federal Financial Management, Government Information
and International Security Subcommittee hearing. The ability of
citizens to know how the government spends their tax money is a basic
principle of self-government, Obama said. The hearing focused on the
Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, which would set up
a searchable database online that the public could use to track federal
funding of organizations. The website would show how much funding an
organization received in each of the last 10 fiscal years, a breakdown
of the transactions, and details about the organization receiving the
funds. —Matthew Weigelt, Federal Computer Week. Read the entire
article.
AGA Today is Brought to You by the
University of Alabama in Huntsville
 Cost Accounting Standards and Financial
Management of Government Contracts—course begins Aug.
10.
Understand how "cash flow" affects the profitability
of a contract. Learn about government funding, incentive and option
structures, the invoicing process, methods of improving cash flow on
government contracts, and cost reporting as well as CAS and non-CAS
accounting standards, proposal preparation and evaluation techniques,
and the DCAA audit in this course provided through eTraining Solutions,
Distance Learning from the University of Alabama in Huntsville
Continuing Education.
For detailed information on this course and other Federal
Contract Management courses, visit www.e-trainingsolutions.net or e-mail ann@e-trainingsolutions.net
New Jersey Plans Major Change to
Pension
Plan
Prodded by a governor and a state
treasurer who spent years on Wall Street, New Jersey is poised to adopt
a plan that would shift about a quarter of the state’s $72
billion pension fund from the control of state employees to private
money managers within the next year. While Gov. Jon S. Corzine
acknowledges that the new strategy will cost at least $200 million a
year in fees and carry some risk, he says he is confident that the
change will improve the state’s fiscal outlook. In magnitude and
in speed, it may be the most drastic change in any state’s
pension investment policy, pension experts say. With a new emphasis on
diversified investments like hedge funds, emerging markets and
commodities rather than the traditional mix of stocks and bonds, the
proposal will transform New Jersey from being one of the most
conservative states to one of the most aggressive, along with New York,
California and Oregon. —David Chen, The New York Times.
Read the entire article.
New Program Lets Companies Donate
Ethics
Data
Ethics Resource Center (ERC), a
nonprofit research group, announced a new charitable contribution
program that lets companies donate their internal ethics and compliance
surveys to ERC's research center. Many organizations conduct regular
employee surveys to learn more about ethics, compliance, risk and
misconduct in the workplace. This is where the ERC program, called
"Donate Your Data," comes in. "While the data from these
surveys are useful for understanding the dynamics of an individual
organization, it also has tremendous potential to benefit the ethics
industry as a whole when merged with data from other
organizations," said Dr. Patricia Harned, president of the Ethics
Resource Center. The new program allows organizations to donate ethics-
and compliance-related data, from current or past surveys, for use in
ongoing research on topics of key concern to business leaders. For more
information about the Donate Your Data program, contact Nichole Remmert.
—SmartPros. Read the entire
article.
AGA Today is Brought to You by the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Systems
Accountant/Analysts
 The U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently seeking Systems
Accountant/Analysts to support efforts in our Rockville, Maryland
headquarters facility. In this role, you will responsible for
performing a variety of system accounting functions in support of the
design, development, and implementation of business process
improvements and major financial IT systems. Applicants must possess a
Bachelor's degree in Accounting or related field and accounting
experience, OR an equivalent combination of college-level education and
training that provides professional accounting knowledge and
experience. Salary range for these positions is $36,671 –
$100,554. For a detailed job description and to apply on-line, please visit our
Web site and refer to Vacancy Announcement #OCFO/DFM-2006-0015.
Only on-line applications will be accepted through 8/6/06. EOE,
M/F/D/V. U.S. citizenship required.
SES Ratings Drop Under New Performance
Evaluation System
Last year, less than half of senior
federal government executives were given the highest performance rating
available under new, more stringent evaluation systems, according to
Office of Personnel Management statistics. Fiscal 2005 marks the second
of two full years that members of Senior Executive Service worked under
a pay-for-performance system that uses more meticulous performance
ratings to determine raises, and the second year SES employees saw a
downtrend in ratings under the new system. From fiscal 2004 to fiscal
2005, the portion of the approximately 6,000 SES employees receiving
the highest performance rating dropped 17 percentage points, from 61
percent to 44 percent. —Karen Rutzick, Government
Executive. Read the entire article.
Derivatives Comment Deadline
Approaching
 Friday, July 28 is
the deadline for commenting on the Governmental Accounting Standards
Board’s (GASB) Preliminary Views (PV) document, Accounting
and Financial Reporting for Derivatives. The PV can be downloaded free from the GASB
website.
Instructions for responding can be found in the Notice to Recipients at
the front of the PV. In addition to submitting comments by mail or
email, respondents can also submit comments via an Internet comment
form for the first time. Learn more
about the GASB’s derivatives proposals.
GASB Issues Technical Bulletin on
Medicare Part D
The GASB has issued a Technical
Bulletin
that clarifies how to report payments received from the federal
government under the retiree drug subsidy provisions of Medicare Part
D. The law that created the program provides for payments to certain
employers and plans that provide prescription drug benefits to persons
who otherwise would be eligible to participate in Medicare Part D; the
payments can be as much as 28 percent of eligible costs. Specifically,
the Technical Bulletin clarifies: How an employer should account for
and report the subsidy payments from the federal government; How such
payments to an employer affect the accounting for the transaction and
financial reporting by a defined benefit OPEB plan; How an employer
should account for and report such payments to the plan; and how a
defined benefit OPEB plan should account for and report such payments
to the plan.
Technical Bulletin 2006-1 is effective immediately, except for
portions pertaining specifically to measurement, recognition, or
required supplementary information requirements of GASB Statements 43
or 45. Those provisions should be applied simultaneously with
the implementation of Statement 43 and 45.
—GASB.
GASB Seeks GASAC Comments on Various
Projects
The Governmental Accounting Standards
Advisory Council (GASAC), which advises the GASB, met July 13 and July
14 in New York City, providing feedback on GASB projects on pollution
remediation, intangible assets and more. Read a memorandum on the meeting from Sharon R.
Russell, CGFM, AGA's representative to GASAC.
Producing a Performance and
Accountability Report?
AGA is hosting its annual workshop,
"Preparing your FY06 Performance and Accountability Report"
on Friday, Aug. 4, 2006, in Washington, D.C., from 9 a.m. - noon at the
U.S. Department of Education on Maryland Avenue SE. This training will
provide you with the tools needed to improve your Performance and
Accountability Report (PAR) and also introduce you to the new
guidelines to follow when submitting your PAR to AGA's Certificate of
Excellence in Accountability Reporting Program (CEAR). Costs are
minimal and three hours of CPE are also available. Your agency is
required to produce a PAR; why not get recognition by receiving AGA's
highest award? Learn
more about the CEAR Program and register for the workshop online.
For questions about registering contact Julie Cupp. For information about
AGA's CEAR Program, contact Evie
Barry, Director of Performance Reporting.
AGA PDC Raffle—More Than $22,000
Raised!
Who would have thought that we could
top
last year’s raffle proceeds of $17,000? Well, obviously each and
every one of you thought just that. This year, we raised $22,055 in
just over three days in San Diego CA. Thank you so much for your
continued support of our community service raffle! More than 60
chapters donated prizes to the raffle—everything from salmon to
lobsters to autographed jerseys to autographed books. As usual, we
can’t do these raffles without the support of the chapters. In
addition, we had contributions from more than 20 exhibitors! —by
Renee Gilman, CGFM. Read more about the raffle and plans for the money
raised.
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. |
