Government Finance Review articles from April 2000

Government Finance Review archives from April 2000

Awarding Excellence in Public Finance.
April 1, 2000... The term "best practice" is a contemporary buzzword in public finance, as well as within the entire realm of businesses and organizations. Governments and businesses everywhere want to learn about best practices, use them, and in some cases,...

The Case for Merit Pay for Teachers.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... The Colonial School District, a suburban school district outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has instituted a merit-pay program for teachers who improve student achievement dramatically. Merit-pay programs currently exist in about a half...

State Tax Cuts Reach New High.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... States cut more taxes for fiscal 2000 than they did in any year for the entire decade leading up to it. Legislative changes slashed $7.3 billion in taxes for fiscal 2000, compared with $7.1 billion in cuts in fiscal 1999. The cuts continued a...

Budget Surplus Presents New Challenges.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... As the federal government cleans its fiscal house, and ends its decades-old reliance on deficit spending, the dwindling supply of U.S. Treasury bonds is causing some anxiety in financial markets. The budget surpluses of the past two years have...

Prepaid Tuition Funds Pose Risks.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Prepaid tuition funds were designed by state governments to help parents pay for their chi1dren's college education. The programs, which have grown in popularity and number, allow state residents to deposit money in a tax-free savings program...

Municipal Market Sees Sharp Drop in 2000.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... A dramatic decline in tax-exempt bond issuance led to the worst month for the municipal primary market in five years. Thirty-one refunding deals worth $427.3 million were sold in January, compared to the 290 issues worth $4.34 billion during...

State Tax Revenues Continue to Grow.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... State tax revenue grew 6.1 percent in July-September of 1999 compared with the same period in, 1998. Although the personal income tax continues to exhibit strong growth (7.6 percent), it is no longer radically outpacing the sales tax (6.7...

Muni Market Competition Ruffles Some Feathers.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... The Internet technology that revolutionized the stock market is beginning to make a ripple in the traditionally staid municipal bond market. Upstart brokerage companies that trade bonds over the Web are trying to attract customers by charging a...

Governments Rethink Corporate Tax Breaks.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... At a time when businesses are enjoying record profits, tax incentives for corporations are costing state and local governments $15 billion a year, according to a study by the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Some officials are beginning to...

Governments Struggle To Fill IT Jobs.(information technology)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... With unemployment at historically low levels and recent college graduates earning six figures in high-tech jobs, it is becoming increasingly difficult for state and local governments to recruit qualified information technology (IT) employees....

Colorado Debates Negotiated vs. Competitive.(Colorado school districts' bond sales)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... A report by a financial advisor and a former investment banker is criticizing Colorado school districts for their reliance on negotiated bond sales. Since 1995, only 9 percent of Colorado bonds have been sold competitively. The report...

Is an Upgrade in Your Future?(municipal bonds)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2000... Fitch IBCA Inc.,plans to adopt new ranges for ratings in more than a dozen different market sectors, based on the findings of the municipal default survey it conducted last year (see December 1999 Government Finance Review, "Measuring Municipal...

Best Practices in Budgeting: Putting NACSLB Practices into Action.(National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... This article highlights how four local governments have improved their budgeting and financial management processes by implementing innovative best practices. Special emphasis is placed on stakeholder input, financial planning, and performance...

Best Practices in Treasury Management.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... Leading state and local treasurers have improved management practices affecting the fundamental areas of cash management: payment processing, investing, and disbursement control. This article summarizes significant changes in the treasury...

Best Practices in Debt Management.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... This article provides examples of the practices of innovative jurisdictions who have examined their debt affordability, lowered issuance costs, and provided greater accountability to taxpayers. At first glance, measuring efficiency in debt...

Best Practices in Pension Administration.
April 1, 2000... This article describes innovations put into practice by pension system administrators at the state and local levels. It describes best practices in pension investing, retirement benefit design, and outreach to retirement plan members. ...

Credit Assessment for Special District Financing.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... As communities grow, governments look for new ways to finance growth without increasing taxes. Special district financing allows local governments to target taxes at newcomers, lessening the burden on current taxpayers. This article examines...

Profiting from the Past: The Economic Impact of Historic Preservation in Georgia.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... In addition to preserving an area's culture, historic preservation can be an economic powerhouse for state and local governments by creating jobs, bringing tourist dollars into a community, creating resources for investment in homes and small...

A High Performance Government.(Gresham, Oregon)
April 1, 2000... High performance governments. Benchmarking. Performance measures[ldots] Everyone has heard the terms. We've heard them so many times that they have nearly lost their meaning, becoming mere buzzwords instead of actual indicators of performance....

Electronic Payments in the U.S. Economy: An Overview.
April 1, 2000... Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the Fourth Quarter 1999 issue of Economic Review, copyrighted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, and is reprinted and adapted with permission. To view the full article, visit...

Technology for Activity-Based Costing.
April 1, 2000... Technology is an increasingly pervasive influence on the daily work of finance officers. The diffusion of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems has promoted information integration. Such integration in turn has led to a resurgence of...

Initiating Program Budgeting in Hungary.(Szentes, Hungary)
April 1, 2000... "Anyone who needs information about the city can obtain it from the budget." That is the motto of Szenres--a mid-size Hungarian city with a population of 33,000. Today the citizens of Szentes can pick up the budget and know more about how their...

President Clinton Submits FY 2001 Budget Proposal.(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2000... On February 7, 2000, President Clinton sent Congress the administration's $1.84 billion Fiscal Year 2001 budget. This budget is premised on scrapping the discretionary spending caps imposed by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-33),...

Winter Committee Meeting Update.(Government Finance Officers Association's convention)
April 1, 2000... The GFOA held its annual Winter Standing Committee Meetings in February. Five of the six standing committees met in Washington, D.C., on February 15 and 16 to welcome new members and begin discussion and development of recommended practices and...

Beyond Greed and Fear: Understanding Behavioral Finance and the Psychology of Investing.(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2000... Shefrin, Hersh Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2000. (368 pp) This excerpt from Beyond Greed and Fear illustrates a central theme of the book--how professional and amateur investors continue to make fundamental mistakes over...

Modern budgeting in the public sector: Treasury rules in a comparative context.(Review)
April 1, 2000... Barrell, Ray and Hubert, Florence, eds. London, UK: National Institute of Economic and Social Research, 1999. (192 pp) In this new policy environment, as changes in technology increase international competition, public-sector...

Debt Management.(Brief Article)(Review)
April 1, 2000... "Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicles: An Option to Finance Transportation Projects" Debt Line, December 1999, pp. 1-4. Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicles, or GARVEE bonds as they are commonly known, are financing instruments available...

"Debt's the Thing".
April 1, 2000... Schultz, Leo The World in 2000, January 2000, p. 108. This article focuses on the use of bonds versus stocks as a financing vehicle for businesses and governments. It predicts that the trend of replacing equity with bonds that was...

"E-Bonds, Licensed to Kill".
April 1, 2000... The Economist, January 15, 2000, pp. 73-74. This article discusses the near-term outlook for trading bonds on the Internet. Whereas Internet trading of equities has taken off (25 percent of stock shares now trade on the Internet), less than...

Economic Development.
April 1, 2000... "There's No Business Like Show Business" Economic Developments, September 15, 1999, pp. 1-6. This article discusses the monetary benefits of film production for local governments. Highlighting the success of the City of Pittsburgh, the...

The Economy.
April 1, 2000... "What Have We Learnt" Rubin, Robert The World in 2000, January 2000, p. 30. This article presents former U.S. Department of Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's views on the "new economy." In short, the new economy is a lot like the...

General Government Management.
April 1, 2000... "The Employee Exodus" Walters, Jonathan Governing, March 2000, pp. 36-38. This article highlights an alarming demographic trend that will have a significant impact on state and local government employment. A large percentage of...

Intergovernmental Finance.
April 1, 2000... "Annexation: A "Winner-Take-All" Process?" Edwards, Mary State and Local Government Review, Fall 1999, pp. 221-231. This article presents the findings of a study on the fiscal impact of annexation on city and town governments....

Public Pensions and Employee Benefits.
April 1, 2000... "Seven Reasons to Care about Social Security" Steisel, Sheri State Legislatures, January 2000, pp. 28-31. Many state lawmakers do not think the problems with funding Social Security will have an effect on state governments....

Privatization.
April 1, 2000... "Private Options for Westmoreland's Troubled Housing Authority" Kengor; Paul Privatization Monitor, January 29, 2000. In the midst of negative publicity surrounding the Westmoreland County Housing Authority (WCHA), this article...

Taxes and Other Revenues.
April 1, 2000... "Panel Discussion: The Impact of Initiatives on State and Local Government Finance" Rueben, Kim; Rust, Kenneth; and McDonough, Kate Municipal Finance Journal, Winter 2000, PP. 18-41. This article is the written transcription of a panel...