Government Finance Review articles from December 2000

Government Finance Review archives from December 2000

Survey Finds Governments Lagging in Net Service.(research findings)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Federal and state governments still have a long way to go in exploiting the power of the Internet, with few offering user-friendly Web sites to help people do business with governments online, according to a survey conducted by Brown...

Sacramento Unions Demand Pension Benefits.(labor relations)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Labor unions representing most of Sacramento County, California's, 12,000 employees are banding together to bargain for increased retirement benefits. The unions want to negotiate a "global" deal instead of holding separate talks for each...

For Local Phone Users, Choice Isn't an Option.(telecommunications industry)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Four years after a grand political compromise among telecommunications interests was supposed to usher in a new era of consumer choice, only about 3' percent of household and small-business telephone lines are served by a competitor to the...

Builders Sue County over Impact Fees.(Cherokee County)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The Greater Atlanta Home Builders Association is suing Cherokee County, Georgia, over impact fees on new development there. Impact fees are one-time charges on new development to help offset the cost of growth. Cherokee County's fees will pay...

Phoenix Gives Students More than Homework.(school computer program)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Phoenix's inner-city high school district is sending nearly 1,000 new computers home with, students who otherwise would not dream of typing our homework on a keyboard. The only strings attached are that sophomores chosen to receive the...

Seattle Turns to Courts to Invalidate Tax Cap.(Initiative 722 property tax cap)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The City of Seattle and surrounding jurisdictions are seeking an injunction to block the implementation of Initiative 722, the voter-approved measure that caps property-tax increases and rolls back some 1999 fees and taxes. In seeking the...

Washington Sets Up Hybrid Pension Plan.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Washington State is transitioning toward a hybrid pension plan that is part 401(a) and part defined benefit. New state and higher education employees will be eligible for the hybrid plan beginning March 1, 2002. Local government employees will...

Arizona Alt-fuel Sticker Shock.(state government financial information)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... An eleventh-hour addendum to end-of-session environmental legislation has cost Arizona government $483 million, an amount equal to 8 percent of the stare's annual budget. The bill was intended to provide rebates and tax credits for owners of...

Transit System Approves Cleaner-burning Buses.(Dallas Area Rapid Transit)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Board members for Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) approved the purchase of 45 cleaner-burning natural-gas buses beginning in late 2001. The buses should help to curb the region's pollutant levels; diesel bus engines' belch nitrogen oxides--a...

Schools to Recoup Losses from Investment Scam.(Pennsylvania scandal recovery)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Eight million dollars will be spread among 50 Pennsylvania school districts to recover losses from the largest public-funds scandal in Pennsylvania history--the implosion of an investment scheme engineered by financial manager John Gardner...

SEC Reaches Agreement with Audit Firms.(Securities and Exchange Commission)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reached an agreement with four major accounting firms that will reduce the amount of consulting work firms can perform for their clients. The rules provide that the audit committees of corporate...

Fiscal Regionalism: Metropolitan Reform Without Boundary Changes.
December 1, 2000... This article details the history of regional governance in the United States; It highlights the different structures of regional cooperation currently in existence and explains, in depth, a relatively new theory known as "fiscal regionalism."...

Denver's Scientific and Cultural Facilities District: A Case Study in Regionalism.
December 1, 2000... In 1988, citizens in metropolitan Denver voted three-to-one to increase taxes to support arts and cultural organizations through a regional cultural asset district known as the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. This article explores...

Act 77: Revenue Sharing in Allegheny County.(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... For six years, local governments in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, have been the recipients of one of the largest tax redistribution mechanisms in the country. The 1 percent local option sales tax generates more than $72 million for tax...

Financing for the Future: The Economic Benefits of Parks and Open Space.(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... State and local governments are investing in parks and open space not only for the traditional reasons of protecting their environment and providing recreational opportunities, but also because it makes good economic sense--saving taxpayer...

The ABCs of ASPs.(Application Service Providers)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... New technology often requires the implementation of a costly infrastructure and more importantly, it requires highly skilled staff to support it. The most promising alternative to governments expanding in-house technology capabilities is the...

Tax Revenue Sharing Agreements in Michigan.
December 1, 2000... Annexation battles have created an atmosphere of mistrust between local units of government in Michigan. A state supreme court ruling stating that "no governmental authority, individual, or person has any legally protected interest in the...

How Fat is Your Thin Client? Observations from the PeopleSoft 2000 Users Conference.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Over the past three years, GFOA has provided consulting services to more than three dozen state and local governments that have chosen to pursue a strategy of integrating information and business processes through enterprise resource planning...

Using QZABs to Improve Education.(Qualified Zone Academy Bond)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... Like many school districts, the Laredo Independent School District (LISD) in Laredo, Texas, has limited resources. Located along the United States/Mexico border, 90 percent of the district's students are economically disadvantaged and 54...

Keeping Our Sights on the Horizon: GFOA's Survey on Emerging Issues.(Government Finance Officers Assocation)(Statistical Data Included)
December 1, 2000... To assist the membership in identifying emerging trends, GFOA's Committee on Governmental Budgeting and Management (COGBM) recently surveyed a select group of "opinion leaders" in government finance to identify emerging issues affecting...

Mission Critical: Realizing the Promise of Enterprise Systems.(Review)
December 1, 2000... Davenport, Thomas H. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press (335 pp) Reviewed by Rowan Miranda, Ph.D., Director of Research, GFOA, Chicago, Illinois. Enterprise Systems (ES), more popularly known as Enterprise Resource Planning...

Bidding for Business: The Efficacy of Local Economic Development Incentives in a Metropolitan Area.(Review)
December 1, 2000... Anderson, John E. and Wassmer Robert W. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research (220 pp) Reviewed by Bradley R. Bouten, Policy Analyst, Government Finance Officers Association, Chicago, Illinois. In their...

Capital Finance.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... "How Capital Budgeting Helped a Sick City: Thirty Years of Capital Improvement Planning in Cleveland" Hoffman, Susan; Krumholz, Norman; O'Brien, Kevin; and Geyer, Billie Public Budgeting & Finance, Spring 2000, pp. 24-37. This...

Infrastructure Finance.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... "All Aboard" Kay, Jane Holtz Planning, October 2000, pp. 14-19. After its introduction in the 19th century, the railroad is finally making its way into the traffic-choked landscape of the urban West. This article focuses on the...

Intergovernmental Finance.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... The Study of American Federalism at the Turn of the Century Dilger, Robert Jay State and Local Government Review, Spring 2000, pp. 98-107. In this article, author Robert Dilger challenges claims made by politicians and Washington...

"Special District Formation Among the States".(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... McCabe, Barbara Coyle State and Local Government Review, Spring 2000, Pp. 121-131. This article examines the phenomenon of special districts and uses an analytical tool to determine what circumstances lead to the creation these...

Public Pensions and Employee Benefits.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... "Parental Leave as Unemployment" Calvo, Cheye State Legislatures, October/November 2000, pp. 26-29. This article discusses proposals in state legislatures to use unemployment insurance funds to give parents paid birth/ adoption...

Risk Management.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... "How to Survive a Lawsuit: Practical Advice from a Pro" Davison, Elizabeth B. Planning, November 2000, pp. 10-13. This article presents advice for dealing with internal and external lawsuits. The author begins with three tips to...

Taxes and Other Revenues.(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... "Tax Holidays: A Slippery Slope" Coburn, Karen Ann Governing, November 2000, pp. 70-72. New York State enacted the first sales tax holiday in 1997. Immediately after, several other states jumped on the bandwagon, and by the 2000...

"Local Government Tax Policy: Measuring the Efficiency of New York City's Tax Mix, FY 1984-1998".(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Berg, Janine; Marlin, John Tepper; and Heydarpour, Farid Adopting financial policies that encourage the diversification of revenues is an important element of financial planning. All revenue sources have particular characteristics in terms...

"Lucky Strike".(Brief Article)
December 1, 2000... Greenblatt, Alan Governing, October 2000, pp. 42-45. The windfall created by the 46-state legal settlement with tobacco companies has made for interesting alliances within some state legislatures, and has erected some old partisan...