Government Finance Review articles from February 2002

Government Finance Review archives from February 2002

Sustainability and the finance officer. (Editorial).(Editorial)
February 1, 2002... In my presidential acceptance speech I raised the issue of sustainability as an emerging critical area of focus for government finance officers and for GFOA. Sustainability touches all facets of public management, crossing jurisdictional...

Electronic payments catching up with checks. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... A new study by the Federal Reserve reveals that check writing is decreasing in relation to electronic transactions as a proportion of non-cash payments. In the first comprehensive study of the retail payments system by the Federal Reserve in 20...

Online auctions reduce costs, increase demand. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Governments are taking advantage of the increasing popularity of online auction sites like eBay to sell surplus property. Online auctions eliminate many of the costs of traditional auctions, including advertising, auctioneering fees, and...

States seeking federal funding for security measures. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... The National Governor's Association has released preliminary survey results outlining the state costs associated with funding the homeland security measures called for by President Bush and the Office of Homeland Security. The survey is being...

Voters approve 84 percent of bond initiatives. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... According to unofficial election results, voters nationwide approved $10.6 billion, or 84 percent, of the $12.7 billion of bond referendums on the November 6 ballots. While voters in Texas and California overwhelmingly approved a slew of bond...

Treasury discontinues 30-year bonds. (News Briefs).
February 1, 2002... The United States Treasury has announced that it will no longer sell 30-year bonds. On the day of the announcement, the bonds recorded their largest one-day price gain ever, while yields took their biggest dive since the 1987 stock market...

Investment in public transportation linked to cleaner air. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A new study by the Sierra Club establishes a direct correlation between investment in public transportation and air quality. The study graded the 50 largest cities in the United States based on emissions per person and the amount of government...

Facing secession, Los Angeles proposes $600 million debt issuance. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... In spite of the uncertain economy and the possibility of being split apart, Los Angeles will ask voters to approve $600 million in general obligation bonds for new police stations and emergency operations centers. The measure will appear on the...

Debit card usage eclipses credit cards. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... According to a recent study by the American Bankers Association and Dove Consulting, debit card usage eclipsed credit cards for the first time ever last year. A sampling of consumers indicates that, in the first half of 2001, 26 percent of all...

City of Chicago seeks to tax Suburban purchases. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Chicago is stepping up its efforts to enforce its 1 percent use tax on "big-ticket" items purchased by city residents who shop in the suburbs. Responsibility for collecting the tax, which applies to items that are delivered to residents, would...

Bush extends moratorium as states move to streamline sales tax systems. (News Briefs).(George W. Bush)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Bush Extends Moratorium as States Move to Streamline Sales Tax Systems. In November, President Bush signed legislation extending the moratorium on Internet-related taxes for two more years. A recent study by the University of Tennessee...

Washington municipalities adjusting to new tax limitation law. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... A tax limitation measure passed by Washington voters in November is exacerbating the budget woes of the state's municipalities. Seattle officials estimate that Initiative 747, which limits property tax increases to 1 percent, will cost the city...

City of Buffalo, school district begin massive layoffs. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Facing a $28 million shortfall in its current budget, the Buffalo School District plans to lay off 433 teachers and 124 school staff members. Both the city and the school district, which have operated with structurally unbalanced budgets for...

Commerce department announces new Encryption Standard. (News Briefs).(National Institute of Standards and Technology)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology announced in December the approval of a new encryption standard for the federal government. The Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, is also expected to be used widely in...

Reform leads to first municipal debt issuance in Mexico. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... The central Mexico city of Aguascalientes sold about $9 million (90 million pesos) in certificates of obligation in December, marking the country's first municipal debt issuance. The sale was made possible by a series of reforms last year, one...

Survey says analysts not satisfied with secondary market disclosure. (News Briefs).(National Federation of Municipal Analysts)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... According to a membership survey by the National Federation of Municipal Analysts, 63 percent of municipal analysts believe the quality of secondary market disclosure has either declined or is subject to significant shortcomings since the...

Philadelphia controller calls for tax reform. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Philadelphia Controller Johnathan Saidel recently unveiled a plan to stimulate the city's economy by reforming what he calls a "burdensome tax structure." The plan includes cutting the wage and business taxes and shifting the burden of the real...

Portland, oregon: A case study in sustainability; The environmental shortsightedness of the past has proven costly to governments. By institutionalizing sustainable principles and practices, governments can ensure a livable future for coming generations.
February 1, 2002... The word "sustainability" is becoming an increasingly common word in the public policy lexicon. The concept behind the word, however, is not widely understood. Simply put, sustainability is the notion that current economic and consumption...

Purchasing power: The massachusetts environmental procurement program.
February 1, 2002... By purchasing recycled and other environmentally preferable products, governments can positively impact the environment and even save money. Massachusetts' efforts in this regard can serve as a model for implementing a successful environmental...

Economic development and environmental protection: The Northampton County, Virginia, experience.
February 1, 2002... Northampton County's Sustainable Technology Park is living proof that economic and environmental interests need not be mutually exclusive. Economic development and environmental protection often are viewed as competing interests at best...

Financing brownfield cleanup and redevelopment.
February 1, 2002... Lack of adequate and affordable financing is the most significant obstacle to brown field redevelopment. governments can catalyze private investment in these projects by leveraging available federal, state, and local resources. With as...

Tax-exempt hotel financing: A primer for finance officers.
February 1, 2002... Because of the limited availability of conventional financing for full-service convention center headquarters hotels, many governments are turning to the tax-exempt bond market to finance their projects. Convention centers stimulate local...

Pension investment policies: The state of the art: GFOA reviewed more than 40 pension in vestment policies to identify prevailing practices and to define a best practice for governments developing or modifying such policies.
February 1, 2002... Pension investment policies are the linchpin of public pension investment programs. This article summarizes the results of an in-depth review of more than 40 investment policies obtained from GFOA members nationwide. The most prevalent...

Managing budgetary pressure during economic downturns. (Forum).
February 1, 2002... The economic recession is creating difficult budget problems for governments throughout the United States. As tax revenue growth stagnates, many governments will face significant budget pressures over the next few years. Except for those...

Eroding sales tax revenues: The impact of e-commerce. (Fiscal and Economic Indicators).(Statistical Data Included)
February 1, 2002... Editor's note: This article was adapted with the permission of the Institute for State Studies, which funded the e-commerce forecast used in this study. The full report, including state-specific data, is available at www.statestudies.org. ...

ERP's second wave: Post-implementation best practices. (State of the Art).(enterprise resource planning)
February 1, 2002... Editor's note: This article is adapted with permission from Deloitte Consulting's global research report, "ERP's Second Wave: Maximizing the Value of Enterprise Applications and Processes." For a copy of the full report, visit Deloitte...

From Florida to Kabul: 2001 in review. (Federal Focus).(United States government)
February 1, 2002... For the United States, 2001 ended as it began--in tumult. The year began on the heels of a controversial presidential election, with control of Congress split almost evenly between the two major political parties. Republicans controlled the...

GFOA, the GASB, and performance measurement. (Letter to the Editor).(Government Finance Officers Association, Governmental Accounting Standards Board)
February 1, 2002... Recently, the president of GFOA, Timothy Grewe, wrote an editorial in Government Finance Review and co-authored, with the executive director of GFOA, a letter to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board. Both outline objections to the GASB's...

Financial Planning and Management in Public Organizations. (Book Reviews).
February 1, 2002... Alan Walter Steiss and 'Emeka O. Cyprian New York, NY: Marcel Dekker, Inc., 2001. (408 pp) Financial Planning and Management in Public Organizations synthesizes the wide range of issues in public finance into three broad categories:...

State Tax Policy: A Political Perspective. (Book Reviews).
February 1, 2002... David Brunori Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press, 2001. (156 pp) The shift from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and the advent of the information age have revolutionized the way in which individuals and institutions...

Maryland's glendening becomes USA's 'smart growth' champion. (Commentary).(Parris Glendening, governor)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2002... Can one governor change an entire nation's direction? It's tough, but Maryland's Parris Glendening, passionate opponent of helter-skelter development that devours open spaces and farm lands while wasting cities and towns, is giving it a...