Highlights
CPE
Opportunities
SEA Reviewer Training Set For Wednesday
An
audio
conference, worth 4 CPE hours, will be held 1-5 p.m. Dec. 7. If it's
your job to explain how government funds have been managed to ensure
funding continues, this reviewer training is for you! Contact Julie Bryant, CGFM, for more
information.
Identity Theft Audio Conference
AGA, in
conjunction with NASACT and N.A.L.G.A., will host an audio conference
on identity theft, worth 2 CPE hours, from 2-3:50 p.m. Wednesday, Dec.
7. Speakers are Kathy Buller, Chief
Counsel to the Inspector General, U.S. Social Security Administration;
Naomi Lefkovitz, Attorney, Federal Trade Commission; and Alice
Robinson-Bond, Deputy Attorney General, State of Ohio. Click here for information!
Register
Today for AGA's NLC
Make plans now to attend AGA’s
National Leadership Conference (NLC) to be held February 2 – 3,
2006, in Washington, D.C. Join us in our nation’s capital for NLC
2006, where the best minds from all levels of government, the private
sector and academia will discuss measuring government performance.
Learn how to best communicate your program’s successes and
shortfalls to citizens, policy-makers and government leaders. Earn up
to 14 CPE hours, share best practices, connect with your peers and view
the latest technologies, services and products in the Exhibit Hall.
• Register online.
• Print registration form to send by fax/mail
(Adobe PDF).
• Visit the
conference website.
• Exhibit at NLC
2006.
Interested in the CGFM Designation?
Sign up for AGA's special Intensive Review Course and
take the CGFM Examinations this February in Washington, D.C. Don't miss
this opportunity to earn your CGFM! Click here for
more information.
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December 5, 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
Performance Pay Provides Rewards, OPM Says
Federal employees who are under pay for performance systems,
including demonstration projects and some other special authorities, do
see a difference in their pay according to their performance, the U.S.
Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has said. In a document prepared
in support of its proposal to extend such a system governmentwide, OPM
said that in the best known of the demonstration projects, the
"China Lake" Navy project, there was a 40 percent difference
in pay between average and high performers after 10 years. Similarly,
it said, in an Air Force laboratory demonstration project, performance
accounted for 25 percent of differences in pay after four years. Annual
raises for top performers ranged up to 20 percent in demonstration
projects, OPM said, noting that some low performers got no annual
raises. Employee organizations and some members of Congress have
expressed skepticism that the government is capable of installing such
a system for all employees and administering it fairly, characterizing
the demonstration projects as specialized settings whose experiences
won't necessarily apply more broadly. Said OPM, "Even where
employees did not report high levels of support for the demonstration
project, they still reported increased pay satisfaction and a stronger
link between pay and performance than under the GS system."
—FedWeek. Click here to read the
entire article.
Lottery Fever Cooling,
States See Revenues Dip
The recent nationwide rise in gas prices has several state
lottery directors concerned that some motorists who are paying more at
the pump are now short the pocket change they used to wager trying to
strike it rich. In Indiana, for instance, sales of scratch-off lottery
tickets between July 1 and Sept. 30 were down $3 million from the
previous quarter, according to the Chronicle-Tribune (Marion,
Ind.). Tennessee lottery sales, which had increased consistently since
the lottery began in January of 2004, began declining over the summer,
according to The Commercial Appeal (Memphis). Tennessee
lottery spokeswoman Kym Gerlock told the paper that gas prices were
affecting sales. State lottery directors in New Hampshire and Rhode
Island also have reportedly linked high gas prices to slumping lottery
sales. If rising gas prices in fact contribute to an overall dip in
state lottery revenue during the 2006 fiscal year, it would come on top
of already declining profits. The amount of money states raised from
lotteries fell from $14.1 billion in the 2003 fiscal year to $13.9
billion in 2004, said Sujit CanagaRetna, a fiscal analyst with the
Council of State Governments, a bipartisan umbrella organization for
state government officials. —Kathleen Hunter,
Stateline.org. Click here to read the
entire article.
Panel Advises Agencies
on Managing Mixed Federal, Contractor Work Forces
A group of federal officials, consultants and academics is
developing recommendations for how agencies should handle a work force
that includes increasing numbers of contractors and others who aren't
civil servants. The National Academy of Public Administration—a
congressionally chartered nonpartisan think tank that assists
government in improving management—prepared a draft working paper
titled, "Managing Federal Missions with a Multisector
Workforce." As a result of an increase in contracting out work,
federal managers have less control and have a harder time overseeing
day-to-day tasks, the authors of the draft paper pointed out at a
recent forum. At the same time, because of the Program Assessment
Rating Tool—an annual questionnaire used by the Office of
Management and Budget to formally evaluate federal programs—and a
greater focus on performance-based awards, managers arguably are held
more accountable. Federal managers also face the challenge of helping
contractors and other nonfederal employees figure out how they will fit
into performance-oriented cultures, the working paper said. Such
cultures can include pay-for-performance systems where compensation is
linked to the ability to meet an agency's strategic goals. Managers
also need to figure out when it is appropriate to tap contractors'
specialized skills, the authors said. —Karen Rutzick,
Government Executive. Click here to read the entire
article.
AGA Today is Brought to You by the
City
of Detroit, Michigan
 The Detroit
City Council is taking applications for the position of AUDITOR
GENERAL. The successful candidate for this position will be
appointed by the Detroit City Council for one ten (10) year term.
Send completed application to: Peggy
Robinson, Deputy Director, City Council Research & Analysis
Division, Detroit City Council, Suite 216 Coleman A. Young Municipal
Center, Detroit, MI 48226.
Or e-mail peggyr@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Federal Accounting Corner
Accounting
Terminology
Every area of expertise has its own
jargon. One problem with federal accounting is that often our terms
come from outside sources, such as private sector accounting, state and
local government accounting and the business world in general. Two
terms that are frequently used in overlapping ways are account
and fund. —Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM, CPA. Click here to read the entire
column.
CFO Survey: Fuel
Costs Stifle Corporate Optimism
Chief financial officers fear that inflation will rise
after Alan Greenspan steps down and are pessimistic about the U.S.
economy. And even though high fuel costs are the No. 1 concern reported
by U.S. corporations, only a minority have attempted to increase fuel
efficiency. To understand the causes of the reduced optimism, the
survey asked executives to choose the top three items, from a list of
15, that are concerns for their companies. Following high fuel costs,
CFOs report they are concerned about increasing healthcare costs and
rising interest rates. These are some of the findings of the year-end
2005 Duke University/CFO Magazine Business Outlook survey, which
asked CFOs from a broad range of public and private companies
globally about their expectations for the economy. Relative to the low
inflation of the last decade of the Greenspan era, 81.5 percent of CFOs
believe that inflation will be higher over the coming decade. CFOs
expect their own companies to raise prices by 3 percent in 2006.
"The pivotal result in the entire survey is the CFOs' perceptions
of inflation in their own product prices. The doubling of inflation
expectations over the past year is a disturbing trend," noted
Campbell Harvey, professor of finance at Duke's Fuqua School of
Business and the founding director of the survey.
—SmartPros. Click here to read
the entire article.
NASCIO Pushes
Improved Emergency Communications
The loss of life and property during and after hurricanes
Katrina and Rita underscores a major problem facing government: the
inability of public safety officials from different government sectors
to communicate with one another and coordinate their efforts. A
research brief published recently by the National Association of State
Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) highlights the interoperability
problems facing federal, state and local officials, and offers a map
toward improved communication. Getting first responders, law
enforcement, transportation officials, public health officials, utility
workers and public works employees all communicating on the same system
is no simple problem, according to the brief. There are technical
issues because of limited, fragmented radio spectrum and proprietary
technology, the brief stated. There also are political concerns, with
different agencies competing for funding, inhibiting the partnership
required to develop interoperability. And there are cultural questions,
with agencies reluctant to give up control over their communications
systems, according to the brief. To address the interoperability
problem, agencies must share decision-making, accountability, business
applications and infrastructure. And the issue must be addressed as
part of a coordinated, multijurisdictional plan that involves all
stakeholders, the brief stated. —Ethan Butterfield,
Government Computer News. Click
here to read the entire article.
GAO Releases
2005
Performance and Accountability Report
Last week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
released its performance and accountability report for fiscal year
2005. In the spirit of the Government Performance and Results Act, this
annual report informs the Congress and the American people about what
GAO has achieved on their behalf. Importantly, GAO received a clean
opinion from independent auditors on its financial statements for the
19th consecutive year. In the report's introduction, Comptroller
General David M. Walker writes: "With respect to our performance
measures, I am especially pleased to report that we met or exceeded
targets for 10 of our 14 performance measures, while setting or
matching all-time records for 3 measures. We documented $39.6 billion
in financial benefits—a return of $83 for every dollar we
spent—and over 1,400 nonfinancial benefits—a record for
us." —GAO. Click here to read the
report.
AGA reviews Performance and
Accountability Reports through its CEAR Program, which has been a major
factor in the improvement of federal agency reports. FY05 reports are
due to AGA by Dec. 15. Contact Julie Bryant, CGFM, for more
information.
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. |
