AGA TOPICS Newsletter

Distance No Obstacle to Success for AGA's Guam Chapter
 

AGA’s Guam Chapter has pulled off several feats that would make a CGFM superhero blush:

·          Guam’s Office of the Public Auditor offers a one-step pay increase to employees who pass the three CGFM Examinations. CGFMs also receiving hiring preference there.

·          Top AGA leaders have visited the island to meet with government officials and speak to the chapter, including at least three Past National Presidents.

·          For the last three years, members have persuaded legislators to commit $25,000 to the chapter to provide continuing education to government employees.

·          Most recently, members did all the footwork involved in offering AGA’s six-day series of Government Financial Management training courses, which provided 48 CPE hours to more than 30 government finance professionals in July.

For a small chapter located 6,000 miles from the West Coast of the United States, no obstacle is too great.

Zeny Asuncion-Nace, CGFM, CPA, CFE, the chapter’s education committee co-chair, said enticing an instructor to travel to Guam was one challenge in bringing the courses to the remote island. Securing the funding was another, but both were solved with the $25,000 appropriation and the willingness of Pete Rose, CGFM, to teach all three courses.

She said the enthusiasm of previous visitors to Guam has sparked interest in the chapter’s activities. They included Past National Presidents WA “Bill” Broadus Jr., CGFM, CPA, Bobby A. Derrick, CGFM, and Jeffrey S. Hart, CGFM, CFE, among other AGA leaders. The chapter also coordinated visits to the dean of the University of Guam, officials from the Department of Administration and key legislators. These meetings “fortified the importance of the CGFM certification within the Guam government,” she said.

She went on, “The positive feedback from these speakers has created a lasting impression and has made it a lot easier to request a facilitator to conduct workshops in this part of the world.”

The chapter had no problem filling the Government Financial Management training courses. Rose said attendees came from a variety of government agencies and the private sector. “They were very attentive. They asked a lot of good questions. I tried to make it meaningful for them, so we used financial statements from Guam,” he said. “I thought it went extremely well.” Asuncion-Nace said attendees “had nothing but high praise” for Rose. (See related story on Yuka Cabrera, the first attendee to pass the CGFM Exams.)

Asuncion-Nace, who works at the Office of the Public Auditor, said the one-step pay increase at the office is a big motivator for staff to become certified, and the hope is that other government agencies will follow suit. “CGFM is a certification that is broad enough to cover various fields of financial management, and therefore has created a large interest from employees working in the budget environment, from government auditors to accounting support staff, who possess the credentials to sit for the CGFM Examinations but may not have enough credits to sit for a CPA certification.”

The course offering was so successful that Asuncion-Nace plans to bring it to Guam next year, too. If the past is any indication, success is assured.