Highlights
Training
Opportunities
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for a Job?
Fraud and Internal
Control Conference a Big Success
More than 400 government accountability professionals gathered in
Atlanta last week for AGA’s First National Internal Control and
Fraud Conference. With the theme “Fraud Prevention &
Detection: The Newest Tools & Techniques,” AGA’s latest
educational offering brought together the best in the business to
discuss an issue of pressing concern to governments at all levels. The
conference began Monday morning with an address from the nation’s
top accountability officer, Comptroller General of the United
States David M. Walker, CPA, who heads the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. Click here
to read further and to see photos from the event.
Join the GASB Board
Members at AGA's Performance Management Conference
All seven members of the Governmental
Accounting Standards Board (GASB) will attend AGA’s Second
National Performance Management Conference (PMC) as moderators and
speakers. 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. Share your thoughts with GASB members about using
performance measurement in government. Let them hear directly from you
as they look to the future of performance measurement on their December
agenda. The conference theme is, “Integrating Measurement with
Management: Making the Connection,” and it offers 16 CPE
hours.
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.
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.
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October 2, 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
AGA's FMSB Testifies Before
FASAB
AGA's Financial Management Standards
Board (FMSB) representatives Andrew C. West, CGFM, CPA, and Anna D.
Gowans Miller, CPA, testified Sept. 27 at a Federal Accounting
Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) public hearing on the Exposure Draft
of the Proposed Concepts Statement, Definition and Recognition of
Elements of Accrual-Based Financial Statements. West is a vice
president and partner with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) Federal
Consulting Practice and a member of the FMSB, and Miller is AGA's
Director of Research and staff liaison for the FMSB. In their
testimony, they responded to questions on the views expressed by the
FMSB in its comment letter to the FASAB.
Calif. Law Calls for
Pension Systems’ Divestment in Sudan
California's giant public pension systems must rid themselves of
investments in companies that help the Sudanese government, under a
measure signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. University of
California students and others who led a campaign for divestment want
to pressure the Arab-dominated government of Sudan, which is blamed for
the deaths of at least 200,000 non-Arabs since 2003 and the
displacement of more than 2.5 million people in the nation's western
Darfur region. "Divestment will show our defiance against the
murderers and their inhumanity," Schwarzenegger said at a Sept. 25
bill-signing ceremony, recalling that a similar divestment movement two
decades ago helped end apartheid in South Africa. Four other
states—Illinois, Maine, Oregon and New Jersey—also have
ordered pension funds to divest from companies operating in Sudan.
Legislation that is modeled on the California bill is pending in 15
other states. —Nancy Vogel, The Los Angeles Times. Read the entire article.
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
OMB Enlists Bloggers’ Aid in Pushing
Management Agenda
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
has launched a back-channel effort to reach out to political bloggers
for their help in pushing the Bush administration's management agenda
on Capitol Hill, OMB officials said last week. OMB Deputy Director for
Management Clay Johnson met with a group of bloggers Sept. 26 after
President Bush signed the Federal Funding Accountability and
Transparency Act at the White House. The act, passed by the House and
Senate Sept. 13, mandates the creation of a website tracking hundreds
of billions of dollars in federal contract and grant spending. Bloggers
from across the political spectrum were credited with helping push the
legislation quickly through Congress this summer by mounting an effort
to expose two senators who had placed holds on the bill. Johnson noted
that Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, had introduced a bill aimed at
strengthening federal performance evaluations and linking annual pay
raises to minimally successful job ratings, but the legislation had
failed to attract a single co-sponsor. "If the American people
knew that," Johnson said, "they would go as nuts as they
did" when they learned that senators had placed holds on the
spending transparency bill. —Tom Shoop, Government
Executive. Read the entire article.
Employees Forsake
Dreaded E-mail for the Beloved Phone
In the beginning there was spam, and the world saw that it was
bad, including Stephen Jukuri. But he has changed his mind. "I
love it," he gushes. "I can get rid of it. Delete. Delete.
Delete." What craters Mr. Jukuri's day is deciding if, when and
how to respond to his normal e-mail. "Now that anyone can e-mail
me about anything, they seem to," he says. The hail of e-mail has
gotten so bad that he created a folder called "Limbo" where
as many as 600 stale-mails have piled up since November 2003. With an
estimated 84 billion messages sent worldwide each day, according to
research consultancy IDC, it's sometimes hard to put your finger on the
efficiency of e-mail while digging out from a pile of it. Like bad
advice, self-importance and ugly carpeting, there's just too much of it
in the office. That's why the telephone is looking ever better these
days. "If Bill Gates invented the telephone and Alexander Graham
Bell invented e-mail," notes Dennis Fluegel, a retired senior
project manager, "we would all be saying, 'You should get one of
these telephones, you can actually talk to someone, hear what they are
saying, and you don't have to use a keyboard!' " —Jared
Sandberg, “Cubicle Culture,” The Wall Street
Journal. Read the entire column.
Report Offers
Improvement Plan for Federal Government Hiring
Complaints about the federal hiring process are long-standing.
Job applicants say it takes too long and is too confusing and that they
often wait for much of a year without feedback on where their
application stands. In response, the government has tried to speed up
the hiring process. Agencies are increasingly using computers to
decrease processing time. The Office of Personnel Management has
developed a 45-day hiring model. Still, hiring takes time, in part
because many jobs require medical and security clearances (and some
background checks can take a year or longer). The larger question,
however, is whether the government is identifying and selecting the
best applicants. Public opinion surveys suggest relatively few college
graduates see the government as a first choice when job-hunting, and a
new study by the Merit Systems Protection Board suggests that the
government needs to do a better job of selling itself. —Stephen
Barr, The Washington Post. Read the entire article.
As Ebbers Enters
Prison, Some Question Justice of the Sentence
Bernard J. Ebbers, 65, entered federal prison last Tuesday to
start his 25-year sentence for his part in the $11 billion accounting
fraud at WorldCom Inc. that led to bankruptcy for the company he
founded and financial pain for investors. On the same day that Ebbers
drove his Mercedes into the Oakdale Correctional Complex in Louisiana,
Andrew S. Fastow, the former Enron Corp. finance chief, was sentenced
to six years in prison and two years of community service. Fastow
enriched himself by more than $45 million in the Enron scandal, but,
facing a 98-count indictment, agreed to testify against top executives.
He faced a maximum sentence of 10 years. Ebbers’ sentence, by
contrast, means he will likely serve the rest of his life in prison.
Washington Post writers Carrie Johnson and Brooke A. Masters
posed these questions last Monday: “How large a pound of flesh
should society exact for serious white-collar crime? When the victims
are diffuse, the crime complex and the injuries economic, what kind of
punishment constitutes justice?” —AccountingWEB.
Read the
entire article.
Federal Executives Pan
Performance Pay System
The fledgling system to pay federal executives based on
quantifiable performance measures is a flop, according to most of the
executives who responded to an unscientific survey. Eighty-six percent
of respondents said the 2-year-old pay-for-performance system in the
Senior Executive Service had no impact on their job performance.
Another 5 percent said the system actually had a negative effect on
their performance. Less than 10 percent said the system made a positive
difference. The survey was created by the Senior Executives Association
in partnership with Avue Technologies, and 846 members of the SES
voluntarily completed it. "This year, my supervisors directed me
to lower the rating of an SES subordinate for whom I had proposed an
outstanding rating, and to lower the rating on any element I chose for
him because it just wasn't his 'turn' to get an outstanding," one
executive from the Agriculture Department said in completing the
survey. "Needless to say, I am very cynical about it all."
—Karen Rutzick, Government Executive. Read the entire article.
FASAB Issues
SFFAS 32
 The
Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) has published
Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) 32,
Consolidated Financial Report of the United States Government
Requirements: Implementing Statement of Federal Financial Accounting
Concepts 4, “Intended Audience and Qualitative Characteristics
for the Consolidated Financial Report (CFR) of the United States
Government.” The statement amends disclosures required in
the consolidated financial report of the U.S. government regarding
assets and liabilities. Certain disclosures, such as those regarding
pricing policies, are rescinded. The CFR is instead required to include
references to relevant agency reports. A disclosure regarding
significant accounting policies also is required. These amendments
primarily relate to standards issues prior to January 2003, when SFFAC
4 was issued. Chairman David Mosso said that “this standard
removes barriers to improved reporting on the finances of the United
States government by aligning requirements with the goal of having a
citizen-focused CFR.” —FASAB.
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.
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.
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