Government Finance Review articles from April 2002

Government Finance Review archives from April 2002

Onward and upward: GFOA's Performance Management Initiative. (From the Publisher).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Once again, the April issue of Government Finance Review is dedicated to a movement that continues to attract a great deal of attention among finance professionals--performance measurement. The notion of making government more efficient and...

New York State strained by unemployment claims. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Insufficient payroll tax reserves have forced the State of New York to turn to the federal government for help in paying unemployment claims. The state will borrow $350 million each month to cover the cost of unemployment benefits, and has...

California City files for bankruptcy protection. (News Briefs).(Desert Hot Springs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Desert Hot Springs, a community of 6,000 located 11 miles north of Palm Springs, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in late December. The move was intended to prevent the seizure of city assets by the Silver Sage Partnership, to which...

Bush budget links performance to funding. (News Briefs).(departmental management graded using red, yellow and green traffic signals)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Making good on a campaign promise to improve accountability, President Bush's proposed $2.13 trillion budget includes a plan to tie agency and program performance to funding. The administration devised a scoring system that uses green, yellow,...

Delaware halts development of $7.4 nillion financial system. (News Briefs).(new system not compatible with human resources and payroll system)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... After four years and $7.4 million, Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner has decided to cancel the design of a new accounting and purchasing system. The decision to abandon the project came after the state's chief information officer said the new...

Bond issuance to stay strong in 2002. (News Briefs).(forecast to reach $3.9 trillion in 2002)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... According to The Bond Market Association, long-term bond issuance is projected to reach $3.9 trillion in 2002, a decrease of 13 percent from the record $4.5 trillion issued in 2001. Last year's historically low interest rates spurred a surge in...

SEC study shows disclosure shortcomings. (News Briefs).(Securities and Exchange Commission)(report examines issuers not complying with secondary market disclosure rules)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The preliminary results of a study by the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that some issuers are not complying with secondary market disclosure requirements. Speaking at a January meeting of GFOA's Committee on Debt and Fiscal Policy...

Milwaukee County mired in pension scandal. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Milwaukee County has been in a furor since early this year when it was discovered that an obscure pension provision would result in lump-sum payouts of millions of dollars for the county executive and senior officials. The county executive, who...

Slumping economy freezes D.C. income tax cut. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The third phase of the District of Columbia's tax reduction effort was stalled in late January when the Congressional Budget Office projected weak growth in the gross domestic product through the end of the year. Although the district's economy...

States to sue Enron for pension losses. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Five states have filed lead plaintiff motions to spearhead a nationwide class-action lawsuit against bankrupt Enron Corp. in hopes of recovering an estimated $1 billion in pension fund losses. Officials say they owe it to public employees to...

El Paso opts for hosted financial system. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Citing cost savings and the difficulty of attracting qualified technology workers to maintain modern software applications, the City of El Paso, Texas, recently decided to have its financial and human resources systems hosted by an application...

States to lose federal transportation dollars. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The states were dealt a severe blow in January when the U.S. Treasury Department estimated a $9.1 billion (28 percent) reduction in federal transportation money next year because of lagging fuel tax revenues. The announcement signaled the...

N.Y.C. Mayor proposes bond issue to finance growing deficit. (News Briefs).(Michael Bloomberg proposes bond sale)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2002... Confronting a fiscal 2003 deficit of $4.8 billion, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has proposed a $1.5 billion bond sale to finance city operations. The mayor's budget balancing strategy also includes $1.8 billion in spending cuts and...

Houston studying corporate sponsorships. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The Houston City Council recently approved a controversial $40,000 contract with a Denver-based sports and marketing company to study the possibility of bolstering revenues by selling corporate sponsorships. A number of ideas already have been...

Judge prevents Allegheny County from throwing out reassessment. (News Briefs).(property tax reassessment)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Three days after the Allegheny County Council voted 15-0 to set aside the 2002 property tax reassessment and reuse the 2001 values, a judge ruled that the Council overstepped its authority and ordered it to use the 2002 values. The judge also...

New Jersey insurance pool reeling from rising health care costs. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2002... An insurance pool comprised of 41 Bergen County towns designed to save money has lost more than $9 million in the last two years. The losses have been blamed on the rising costs of health care and unreasonably low premiums. The fund assessed...

Town of 90 receives $1.1 million for new sewer system. (News Briefs).(Nassau, Minnesota)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Nassau, Minnesota, population 90, will soon receive a total of $1.1 million in intergovernmental aid to replace failing septic systems with a public sewer system. On a per-capita basis, the grants and loans amount to $12,250 for every man,...

New Jersey downgraded by Moody's. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
April 1, 2002... Citing depressed income tax revenues that have contributed to a looming $2.5 billion budget deficit, Moody's downgraded $14 billion of New Jersey debt in early March. The action included the lowering of $3.5 billion of the stare's general...

Citizen participation: Legitimizing performance measurement as a decision tool.
April 1, 2002... Involving citizens in the development and implementation of performance measurement systems can legitimize such initiatives among elected officials, thereby enhancing their value in the decision-making process. Since the mid-1990s, there...

A balanced scorecard approach to performance measurement: The balanced scorecard provides a useful framework for focusing performance measurement efforts on the critical drivers of success.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... A team without a scorecard is not playing the game; it is only practicing. Tom Malone President and COO, Miliken & Co. Most organizations have vision statements. However, if you were to ask them how successful they have been in...

Trusting the numbers: The power of data verification; This article reviews the importance of verifying the reliability of performance measurement data and outlines the steps in performance measurement verification.
April 1, 2002... Editor's note: This article is adapted from a chapter in a forthcoming GFOA publication on integrating performance measurement into the budget process. In theory, the purpose of performance measurement is to facilitate and improve...

Training for performance measurement success: An effective training program can help get performance measurement off the ground and sustain the system as it matures into a catalyst for government accountability and improvement.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Developing and maintaining a successful performance measurement effort is contingent upon three critical factors--top-level support, a clear-cut methodology, and a comprehensive and ongoing training system. In this sense, performance...

Aligning performance measurement with key management processes: Integrating performance measurement with other key management processes helps to focus these efforts on government-wide priorities.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... More often than not, implementing performance measurement as an isolated "add on" requirement results in superficial measures and an effort that neither supports improved resource allocation decisions nor ensures that individual priorities are...

Motivational strategies for public managers: The budgetary belt-tightening precipitated by the recession has placed renewed emphasis on the importance of employee motivation.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... There is pleasure in using valued skills and abilities. This propensity is a basic asset, an ally of productivity. Ellen Doree Rosen Improving Public Sector Productivity A recent newspaper article reported that declining revenues...

GAO limits auditor consulting. (Issues in Accounting).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The U.S. General Accounting Office recently promulgated important changes to the standards governing auditor independence set forth in its publication Government Auditing Standards, commonly known as the "Yellow Book." The principal impact of...

Increases, decreases, and deficits: The President's budget proposal. (Federal Focus).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "Once we have funded our national security and our homeland security, the final great priority of my budget is economic security for the American people," President George W. Bush declared in his State of the Union address. "To achieve these...

How and why to strategically finance IT projects. (State of the Art).(information technology)(adapted article from the November 2001 issue of the PA Times, American Society for Public Administration)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Editor's note: This article is adapted with permission from the November 2001 issue of PA Times, the monthly newspaper of the American Society for Public Administration, www.aspanet.org. In today's technological environment, the strengths...

Calculating performance measures: A primer for finance officers. (Forum).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... As the number of governments using performance measurement increases, it is more important than ever that a wider audience understand the different kinds of measures and how to calculate them. At least to some extent, the usefulness of...

Winter committee meeting update. (Profiling GFOA).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Spring-like weather greeted members of GFOA's five standing committees as they convened in Washington, D.C., for the annual Winter Meeting. During the two-day event held January 29-30, committee members addressed a number of policy issues...

Performance measurement not the GASB's concern. (Letter to the Editor).(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2002... I want to compliment GFOA President Tim Grewe for his excellent editorial in the October 2001 issue of Government Finance Review. The editorial summarizes GFOA's reasons for opposing any attempt by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board to...

Building the Future: Issues in Infrastructure in Canada. (Book Reviews).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Aidan R. Vining and John Richards, editors Toronto, Ontario: C.D. Howe Institute. (223 pp) A collection of essays on infrastructure policy, this text seeks to better inform policymakers about general issues in infrastructure...

Measuring Up: Governing's Guide to Performance Measurement for Geniuses (and Other Public Managers). (Book Reviews).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... W. Anderson "Andy" Williams Jonathan Walters Washington, DC: Governing Books, 1998. (179 pp) Measuring Up, a volume in the Governing Management Series, is an ideal text for public managers who are more comfortable with a practical...

Accounting, auditing, and financial reporting. (From the Library).(policy study)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "Local Government Accountants as Public Managers: An Evolving Role" McCue, Clifford P. State and Local Government Review, Spring 2001, pp. 144-157 Local government accountants traditionally have assumed the role of "information...

Budgeting. (From the Library).(Review)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "The Implications of GASB Statement No. 34 for Public Budgeting" Chan, James Public Budgeting & Finance, Fall 2001, pp. 79-87. Although GASB Statement No. 34 has few direct references to budgeting, the implementation of the new...

Environmental finance (Policy). (From the Library).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "Smart Growth and Housing Affordability: Evidence from Statewide Planning Laws" Staley, Samuel and Gilroy, Leonard Reason Public Policy Institute, Policy Study No. 287, December 2001. States across the country have either adopted...

Management. (From the Library).(outlines information available in a government performance report evaluating the nation's largest counties)
April 1, 2002... "Grading the Counties: A Management Report Card" Barrett, Katherine; Greene, Richard; and Mariani, Michelle Governing, January 2002, pp. 20-89. The latest installment of the Government Performance Project, this extensive report...

Pensions and benefits. (From the Library).(outlines report on defined contribution plans for the tax-exempt sector)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "Defining Value: A Report on Defined Contribution Plans in the Tax-Exempt Sector" Fidelity Investments Tax-Exempt Services Company, 2001. This report provides an inside account of the evolution of defined contribution plans, based on...

Performance measurement. (From the Library).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "Promoting the Utilization of Performance Measures in Public Organizations: An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting Adoption and Implementation" Lancer Julnes, Patria de and Holzer, Marc Public Administration Review, November/December...

Taxes and other revenues. (From the Library).(Municipal Finance Journal, Fall 2001, pp. 1-23.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... "e-Commerce and the Single-Rate Sales Tax Proposal" Cornia, Gary; Edmiston, Kelly; Sheffrin, Steven; Sexton, Terri; Sjoquist, David; and Zorn, Kurt Municipal Finance Journal, Fall 2001, pp. 1-23. The sales tax landscape is dotted...

Calendar.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... APRIL April 3-5: Louisiana Public Risk Management Association Spring Conference. Marksville, LA. For more information, visit www.lagfoa.org. April 7-9: National Association of State Chief Information Officers Midyear Conference....

'Perpetual fiscal crisis' for states? (Commentary).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... Could it be true that the $40 billion worth of budget deficits the governors and state legislatures now face aren't temporary? That the red ink will keep flowing even when the recession ends? That without some major system corrections, our...