Highlights
Training
Opportunities
Looking
for a Job?
 Register Now for AGA's Internal Control & Fraud
Conference
Join us at the Hyatt Regency
Atlanta to earn 14 CPE hours at outstanding educational sessions. This
year's program is not to be missed! AGA’s fraud conference
promises to be an excellent learning and networking opportunity. With
the theme “Fraud Prevention and Detection: The Newest Tools and
Techniques,” this conference will focus on management’s
responsibility for ensuring a good internal control system and the role
of accountability professionals in minimizing the risk of fraud, waste
and abuse.
Learn about the $67 billion Iraq Oil-for-Food fraud; Medicare/
Medicaid fraud; A-123 implementation; internal controls and fraud in
not-for-profit organizations and cities; school district fraud in the
state of New York; and the use of fraud hotlines in cities across the
country.
View the complete schedule of dynamic
speakers.
Monday,
Sept. 25
Tuesday, Sept.
26
Register today and show your commitment to a
more accountable government!
Make the
Connection: Attend AGA’s PMC in October
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,
set for Oct. 30-31 in Schaumburg, IL, 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 16 CPE hours. Make a connection with
SEA award winners!
SAS No.
112: Impact on Auditors and Preparers
NASACT, in conjunction with AGA and ALGA, is pleased to announce an
audio conference on AICPA Statement on Auditing Standards No. 112,
which establishes standards and provides guidance on communicating
matters related to an entity’s internal control over financial
reporting identified in an audit of financial statements. The audio
conference, worth 2 CPE hours, is set for 2 – 3:50 p.m. EDT on
Oct. 19. Speakers are Randy Roberts, Director of
Professional Practices, Office of the Auditor General, state of
Arizona, and Arizona State Comptroller Clark
Partridge. Cost is $249 if you
register before Oct. 13.
Now
Accepting Nominations for Excellence in Government Leadership Award, to
be Presented at 2007 NLC
Which state government professional do you know who has
demonstrated outstanding leadership that led to improved government
services and operations? Nominate your candidate for AGA’s Excellence in
Government Leadership Award today. All leadership award nominations
must be submitted electronically to Rosanna Ortiz by Friday, October
27, 2006.
|
September 18, 2006 • News from the Profession
AGA Today is Broug`t 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
Interior IG Assails Agency for 'Anything
Goes' Ethics
The U.S. Department of the
Interior’s chief official responsible for investigating abuses
and overseeing operations accused the top officials at the agency on
Wednesday of tolerating widespread ethical failures, from cronyism to
cover-ups of incompetence. “Simply stated, short of a crime,
anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the
Interior,” charged Earl E. Devaney, the Interior
Department’s inspector general, at a hearing of the House
Government Reform subcommittee on energy. “I have observed one
instance after another when the good work of my office has been
disregarded by the department,” continued Devaney, who is a
member of AGA’s Washington D.C. Chapter. “Ethics failures
on the part of senior department officials—taking the form of
appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias—have been
routinely dismissed with a promise ‘not to do it again.’
” The blistering attack was part of Devaney’s report on
what he called the Interior Department’s “bureaucratic
bungling” of oil and gas leases signed in the late 1990’s,
mistakes that are now expected to cost the government billions of
dollars but were covered up for six years. —Edmund L. Andrews,
The New York Times. Read the entire article.
States: Feds Ignoring Anti-Terror
Intelligence
Five years after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks called into question the nation's intelligence system, state
homeland security officials say the federal government still is failing
to collect and analyze terror-threat information gathered by state and
local authorities. State homeland security officials in charge of new
intelligence "fusion centers" told Congress that the federal
government needs to come up with a way to connect federal, state and
local information-gathering sources or risk missing clues that could
help prevent another terrorist attack. They also criticized the federal
government for significant delays in issuing top-secret clearance to
state officials and for withholding too much information on the grounds
that it is classified. —Kavan Peterson, Stateline.org.
Read the entire article.
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 government
auditors and financial managers. We offer studies in accounting,
budgeting, financial management and performance auditing, as well as
customized development services to meet your organization’s
needs.
For more information, call (888) 744-GRAD or
visit www.grad.usda.gov.
Wake Up America: Fiscal Policy is
Unsustainable
 The Concord Coalition is
organizing a series of public forums around the country designed to
focus attention on our nation’s daunting long-term fiscal
challenges. It is called the Fiscal Wake Up Tour. The purpose of this
new issue-oriented grassroots project is to draw attention to the
simple fact that, according to analysts of diverse political views,
current fiscal policy is unsustainable and hard choices must be made to
set things right. Learn more.
Federal
Accounting Corner
Integrating the General
Ledger
The U.S. Standard General Ledger
(SGL) has always had a split personality, or perhaps it might be better
to say that the budgetary and proprietary accounts are twins that
sometimes act closely in concert and other times act with total
independence. I have described, in a number of articles, the
relationships between proprietary and budgetary balances, and even
assisted Treasury with developing elimination groups. Now Treasury's
Financial Management Service (FMS) has new initiatives to better
integrate these two parts of the SGL. —Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM,
CPA. Read the entire column.
AGA
Today is Brought to You by the University of Alabama in
Huntsville
 Federal Contract Management Essentials—Program
Begins October 25
Explore the realm of contract management
through real-world examples and grow your knowledge base for success in
the federal contracting arena. This Certificate Program covers
the Government Procurement System, Contract Types and Structuring,
Legal Aspects of Government Contracting, Required and Optional Contract
Clauses, Cost and Price Analysis, and Contract Administration.
For detailed information on this or our more advanced program,
Federal Contract Management Specialization, visit www.e-trainingsolutions.net
or email ann@e-trainingsolutions.net
FEMA Wants Storm
Money—Now—but Louisiana Wants Audit First
The Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) is lowering the boom on Louisiana for refusing to pay its $338
million share of a federal program that bought goods and services
ranging from chainsaws to dental care for hurricane victims. On July
22, FEMA started assessing interest of $14,308.22 for each day the
state doesn’t pay. If the bill isn’t paid by Oct. 20, FEMA
will add penalties—retroactive to July 22—of $55,723.11 per
day. Louisiana’s legislative auditor claims FEMA hasn’t
provided enough information to allow the state to determine whether the
money was spent on legitimate needs for people who truly were victims.
The Legislative Auditor’s Office notes that state lawmakers
passed a measure requiring such a review before FEMA is paid.
“Nothing has been paid on any of the bills,” said Daryl
Purpera, assistant legislative auditor and director of the Compliance
Audit Division. “They can’t be paid until the audit is
complete.” —Sandy Davis, The Advocate. Read the entire
article.
Progress, Setbacks
Among Bush's Workforce Reforms
Bold changes in the government's organization and ambitious plans
to reshape personnel management continue to swirl around the federal
workforce five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
President Bush pointed to the structural changes in his Sept. 7
progress report on the struggle against terrorism. His list included
creation of the Transportation Security Administration, which added
about 54,000 jobs to the federal payroll; the merger of 22 agencies and
180,000 employees into a new Department of Homeland Security; and the
decision to pull together the 16 agencies of the intelligence community
with 100,000 employees under a new position, director of national
intelligence. Bush, of course, did not mention the turf wars and other
tensions that have accompanied the reorganizations. He did not mention
hard feelings between the administration and unions (although he
expressed appreciation for federal agents, analysts and others who work
to deter terrorist threats). He did not address critics who question
whether the administration's changes may have created more problems
than solutions. —Stephen Barr, The Washington Post. Read the entire article.
AGA Conference
Attendees Find Money Awaiting Them
Attendees at AGA’s Blue Ridge Professional Development
Conference got a pleasant surprise from Virginia’s Division of
Unclaimed Property—more than $20,000 in unclaimed property.
Speakers from the state participated in the July conference in
Charlottesville, running the names of several hundred conference
participants and family members through computer databases to determine
if the division was holding any “unclaimed property” for
them or their respective agency. Property (cash, stock and
miscellaneous types of property) becomes “unclaimed” or
“abandoned” after the owner has not cashed a check or has
lost contact with the business/institution holding their funds after a
specified period of time. Banks generally report savings or checking
accounts, businesses report uncashed payroll checks, dividend checks
and underlying shares of stock. This property is turned over to the
state of the owners’ last known address for safekeeping until the
owner can be located or claims the property. The division found more
than 20 accounts totaling more than $20,000 that could be claimed. Each
state has an Unclaimed Property
office, maybe some missing money awaits. —Virginia Division
of Unclaimed Property.
Federal
Employees' Job Tenure Drops; State Workers Stay Longer
Federal employees still remain on the job much longer
than private sector workers, but the gap is narrowing. New numbers
released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show that the length
of tenure for federal employees is decreasing while that of private
sector workers is increasing. From February 2000 to January 2006,
median years in federal service dropped from 11.5 years to 9.9 years.
During that same period, median private sector tenure rose from 3.2
years to 3.6 years. The federal trend differs from that for state and
local government workers, too. Tenure for state employees rose from 5.5
years to 6.3 years from February 2000 to January 2006. Length of stay
for local government workers dropped slightly during that time, from
6.7 years to 6.6 years. The BLS report cites age as a primary factor
for the much longer tenure of public sector employees. About 75 percent
of government employees were 35 and older, while about 60 percent of
private sector workers fell into that range. —Karen Rutzick,
Government Executive. Read the
entire article.
GASB Requests
Input on Emerging Issues
 Although some of the GASB’s time is spent monitoring
practice for developing issues in governmental accounting and financial
reporting, those who prepare, audit, and use governmental financial
statements are best positioned to identify problems when they arise. As
a result, the board depends heavily on its constituents to help
identify emerging issues that may require its attention. If you are
aware of new issues for which accounting guidance is needed or any
problems with the interpretation or implementation of GASB standards or
with the financial report information that results from application of
existing guidance, please let the GASB know. Potential concerns can be
sent via e-mail to the GASB’s
director of research and technical activities. Alternatively, a
letter can be sent to: GASB, 401 Merritt 7, PO Box 5116, Norwalk, CT
06856-5116. When submitting a description of an issue, please be sure
to include your name and contact information so that the staff can
follow up with you. Matters brought to the GASB’s attention will
be explored by the staff and, based on the results of that research,
may be considered by the board for addition as a project on its
technical agenda along with competing projects. —GASB.
New Yellow Book Focus
of Nov. 8 Audio Conference
AGA, in conjunction with NASACT and ALGA, is pleased to
announce a new and
significant audio conference addressing the 2006 revisions to
the Government
Auditing Standards, commonly known as the Yellow Book, set for
November 8
from 2 – 3:50 p.m. EST. To discuss the major changes and
interpretation of the
Government Auditing Standards is AGA Past National President
Jeffrey Steinhoff, CGFM, Managing Director, Financial Management and
Assurance, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO); Jeanette M.
Franzel, CGFM, Director, Financial Management and Assurance, GAO; and
Marcia B. Buchanan, CGFM, Assistant Director, Financial Management and
Assurance, GAO. Cost is $249 per site if you register by November 3; $299 thereafter.
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. |
