Government Finance Review articles from April 2001

Government Finance Review archives from April 2001

GFOA'S New Performance Management Initiative.
April 1, 2001... As this issue of Government Finance Review demonstrates, governments at all levels are attempting to link performance measurement to budgeting and strategic planning. One of the main reasons for the renewed interest in the art and science of...

Cities Sue Feds Over Census Adjustment.
April 1, 2001... The city of Los Angeles has asked a federal court to issue a temporary restraining order that would keep the U.S. Commerce Department from having the final say over whether to adjust 2000 Census numbers. The lawsuit alleges that the commerce...

Study Finds TIES Hinder Growth.
April 1, 2001... A recent study by two University of Illinois researchers finds that cities and villages in the Chicago metropolitan region with tax increment financing (TIF) districts grew more slowly than municipalities that did not have TIF districts. The...

Slowing Economy Forces States to Trim Budgets.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... The slowing economy has sharply reduced state tax revenues in the last few weeks, forcing a growing number of states around the South and Midwest to cut their budgets for the first time in a decade. As many as 15 states that depend on sales and...

Michigan Pension Systems Receive Good Reviews.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... A commission set up to examine the financial health of public pension systems throughout the state of Michigan recently reported that the vast majority of the systems are in good shape. However, about 50 of the public systems were behind in...

Supreme Court Gives States Immunity from ADA.
April 1, 2001... By ruling that state employees cannot sue for damages for violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), the U.S. Supreme Court carved out a new area of immunity for the states from the reach of federal civil rights law. The case,...

Florida Phases in New Pension System.
April 1, 2001... The state of Florida is in the midst of transitioning its retirement system from one that is purely government run to one that gives more responsibility to plan participants. Approximately 650,000 active teachers, bureaucrats, judges, and other...

Electricity Crisis Dims Business Outlook for California.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Four out of 10 small companies say California's electricity crisis has dimmed their view of the state as a place to do business, and nearly two in 10 are exploring a move to another state, according to a survey released by the National...

Local Governments Up and Running on Web.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... According to a new survey on electronic government, more than 80 percent of local governments now have their own Web site. Of those governments that do not yet have sites, 70 percent plan to create one within the next year. The survey, which...

Cities Rushing to Join Mass Transit System.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Once ridiculed as a waste of money that would never work in a car-crazy town, the success of light rail trains in Dallas is now leading more than a dozen surrounding cities to ask the once-scorned Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency (DART) to...

County Buys Farm Development Rights.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Eager to preserve farmland from encroaching development, Lake County, Illinois, Board of Commissioners hope to test a program that will allow them to buy future land development rights, but not the land, from farmers. The idea of buying...

Federal Government Should Spend More on IT.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... According to a new report from the Council for Excellence in Government, the federal government should invest as much on moving information technology forward as it did on averting a potential Y2K catastrophe. Congress appropriated $3 billion...

Maine Anticipates $300 Million Budget Shortfall.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Preliminary projections indicate that the state of Maine will experience a revenue shortfall of $12.5 million in the fiscal year ending June 30. Worse yet, officials are projecting a shortfall of about $250 million over the next two years, with...

Florida Facing Water Crisis.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... A drought in Florida has dried up lakes and rivers, ruined crops, and forced stockmen to sell off some of their cattle, leading that state's governor to compare the Florida water crisis to California's power crisis. The governor is offering the...

Bringing Out the Dead: Can Information Technology Resurrect Budget Reform?
April 1, 2001... Abandoned budget reforms dot the state and local government landscape. Program, performance, zero-based, and mission-driven budgeting--with isolated exceptions--are just some of the reforms in the scrap heap of public-sector fiscal history. The...

Linking Performance Measurement to Budgeting.
April 1, 2001... This article provides performance measurement examples from the City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, including the application of performance data in key decision making processes. Measurement is intrinsic to daily modern life. Watches and...

The Government Performance and Results Act: Lessons for State and Local Governments.
April 1, 2001... The Government Performance and Results Act sought to address a broad range of concerns about federal government accountability and performance. This article provides an overview of the Act, its relation to previous federal reform efforts, and...

Assessing the Impact of Performance Budgeting: A Survey of American States.
April 1, 2001... This article summarizes the findings of a survey on how performance measurement has influenced state budgeting regarding budget actors, budget cycles, and the perception of government by the media and citizens. Over the past decade, state...

Taking Stock of Performance Measurement: Information Resources for Public Managers.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... This article summarizes the resources currently available on performance measurement and benchmarking. It covers key publications, training, and Web sites from the GFOA and other national organizations. Searching for information about...

Constituent Relationship Management Systems: A Primer for Public Managers.
April 1, 2001... The author would like to thank the following individuals for their assistance with this article: JOSE GARCIA, Public Sector Vice President, Oracle Corp; CARI PEABODY, CRM-Solutions Specialist, Oracle Corp.; KENNETH MUNSON, Director, Public...

Proposed Technical Amendments to GASB Statement No. 34.
April 1, 2001... In late December 2000, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued an exposure draft (ED) of a proposed statement that would amend GASB Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements--and Management's Discussion and Analysis--for...

Winter Committee Meeting Update.(table)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... On January 30-31, the GFOA's annual Winter Meeting for the Standing Committees was held in Washington, D.C. With more than 175 members in attendance, the event was a great success. Many issues were addressed throughout the two-day event during...

The Federal Budget: Politics, Policy, Process.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Schick, Allen with the assistance of Felix LoStracco Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000, 307 pp. Rowan Miranda, Ph.D., is Director of Research and Consulting at GFOA. Allen Schick's book on the federal budget is the...

The Money Flood.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... Clowes, Michael J. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2000, 308 pp Brennan Schwarz is a Policy Analyst in GFOA's Research and Consulting Center in Chicago, Illinois. In The Money Flood, Michael J. Clowes provides a narrative of the...

Accounting, Auditing, and Financial Reporting.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2001... "A New Look for Local Ledgers" City and County Financial Management, November 2000, PP. 1 and 6. GASB Statement No. 34 has been called the biggest change in the history of governmental accounting. Governments with $100 million or more...

Budgeting.(Brief Article)(Abstract)
April 1, 2001... "Performance Measurement: A Local Government Response" Rivenbark, William C. and Kelly, Janet M. Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Spring 2000, pp. 74-86. This article reviews the present-day literature on...

Risk Management.(Brief Article)(Abstract)
April 1, 2001... "Risk Management May Lower Liability: Municipal Governments Should Be Proactive to Reduce Their Liability Exposure" Harper, Jeff City & Town, January 2001, PP. 9-10. The City of Springdale, Arkansas, has developed a five-phase...

"Local Government Tax Policy: Measuring the Efficiency of New York City's Tax Mix".(Brief Article)(Abstract)
April 1, 2001... Berg, Janine; Marlin, John Tepper; and Heydarpour, Farid Public Budgeting and Finance, Summer 2000, pp. 1-14. Diversification of revenue sources is at the foundation of good financial management. The authors examine the efficiency of...

"The Tangled Web of Taxing Talk: Telecommunications Taxes in the New Millenium".(Brief Article)(Abstract)
April 1, 2001... Cordes, Joseph J.; Kalenkoski, Charlene; and Watson, Harry S. National Tax Journal, September 2000, pp. 563-589. The telecommunications industry is subject to a number of taxes that are not applied to other industries. In this article,...

"Caught in the Back--Tax Trap".(Brief Article)(Abstract)
April 1, 2001... Kemmet, Lynndee Governing, January 2001, pp. 44-46. For cities struggling to make ends meet, a public-private partnership for the collection of delinquent debt may sound like an enticing arrangement. However, before local officials...