Government Finance Review articles from October 1998

Government Finance Review archives from October 1998

Getting ready for E-commerce.
October 1, 1998... Governments and communities need to take advantage of E-Commerce by developing effective public-private partnerships, providing workforce development, facilitating technology integration, and planning for economic restructuring. Electronic...

Technology for group decision making: how Fairfax County redesigns financial processes.
October 1, 1998... The authors describe how "meetingware" was used to redesign financial processes in Fairfax County, Virginia. Editor's note: Each year the Government Finance Officers Association bestows its prestigious Award for Excellence to recognize...

Fiscal indicator reports and ratio analysis: benchmarking Ohio municipalities and school districts.
October 1, 1998... The State Auditor's Office provides local governments with ratio indicators to benchmark financial performance and identify fiscal distress. Editor's note: Each year the Government Finance Officers Association bestows its prestigious Award for...

Enabling technologies for public employee retirement systems: LACERA's "one contact, one answer, 100% accuracy" vision. (Los Angeles County Employee Retirement Association)
October 1, 1998... The Los Angeles County Employee Retirement Association (LACERA) utilized multiple technologies to manage, transfer, and archive information to meet business goals and achieve superior customer service standards. Editor's note: Each year the...

Reengineering the purchasing function: identifying best practices for the City of Chicago. (purchasing department of Chicago, Illinois)
October 1, 1998... Chicago's purchasing department has redesigned its processes by incorporating best practices from research conducted around the country. As local governments across the U.S. replace legacy financial systems, they can seize the opportunity to...

Contracting for enterprise financial software: the methodology of parallel negotiations.
October 1, 1998... This article presents a contract negotiation approach that improves the value of financial software and implementation services by retaining competition throughout the final phases of the procurement cycle. Motivated in-part by the Year 2000...

Benchmarking tools for public risk management programs.
October 1, 1998... Benchmarking can be an effective tool to improve the performance of risk management programs. Editor's note: Reprinted and adapted from Public Risk, May/June 1998, with permission. Many finance officers are confronted today with the...

Does year 2000 put finances at risk?
October 1, 1998... Editor's note: The Forum reflects opinions of the author, not necessarily endorsed by the GFOA Executive Board, staff, or membership. The Forum is intended to promote dialogue among the readership. On June 23, officials from an Illinois county...

Savings are vital to everyone's retirement: a report from the 1998 SAVER Summit.
October 1, 1998... When 200 delegates arrived in Washington, D.C., during the first week of June for the three-day national summit on retirement savings, called SAVER Summit, expectations were high that retirement and pension-related issues would advance to the...

IRS restructuring bill leads to relief for state and local governments. (Internal Revenue Service)
October 1, 1998... After hearing weeks of emotional testimony from taxpayers and agents about abuses by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that made for dramatic sound bites on the news, Congress passed legislation that should result in the most significant changes...

Paraguay's public budget hearings: a path to citizen responsiveness.
October 1, 1998... For the first time in Paraguay's history, Asuncion's then-mayor summoned the citizens to a public budget hearing in late 1995. These hearings received technical assistance from Florida's Metro Dade County Government and Florida International...

The importance of the census for small communities. (decennial Census)
October 1, 1998... The decennial Census is important to all Americans, but especially to small communities. Approximately 25 percent of the United States population lives in small communities which are governmental units having 3,000 inhabitants or fewer, i.e.,...

Local government auditors' relationships with the media: a survey.
October 1, 1998... Auditors' perceptions of the media and its impact, if any, on 1) auditor independence, 2) the process of reporting audit findings, and 3) the internal auditor's role in local government were the subject of a survey conducted by the author in...

Ehlers on Public Finance: Building Better Communities.
October 1, 1998... Ehlers, Robert L. Rochester, Minnesota: Lone Oak Press, Ltd. 1998. (392 pp) Reviewed by Alan L. Anders, Director of Financing Policy of the New York City Office of Management and Budget and Treasurer of the New York City Municipal Finance...

Electronic Commerce: A Guide for Public Officials.
October 1, 1998... Newcombe, Todd Sacramento, California: Government Technology Press, 1997. (351 pp) Reviewed by Naydeep Gill, Acting Finance Director/City Treasurer, City of Durham, North Carolina. The advent of electronic commerce has changed the way that...

The City and the World: New York's Global Future.
October 1, 1998... Crahan, Margaret E. and Vourvoulias-Bush, Alberto, eds. New York, New York: The Council on Foreign Relations[R], Inc., 1997. (202 pp) Reviewed by Jeffrey Green, General Counsel, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and former member of...