Government Finance Review articles from October 2002

Government Finance Review archives from October 2002

Getting a handle on our challenges. (President's Message).(Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada)
October 1, 2002... During a recent finance conference I oversaw one of our colleagues reading a book entitled I Used to Have a Handle on Life but It Broke. This seems to have been a common theme for many finance officials over the past year. We have seen the...

Decline in federal revenues largest since 1946. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Congressional Budget Office's much anticipated mid-year projections revealed a startling statistic: the 6.6 percent decline in revenues from 2001 to 2002 was the most dramatic in 56 years. Although details on which taxes were hardest hit...

Atlanta Mayor takes revenue collection personally. (News Briefs).(Mayor Shirley Franklin personally calls on top debtors to Sanitation Department)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Frustrated by Atlanta's inability to collect revenue it is owed, Mayor Shirley Franklin recently took matters into her own hands, personally calling some of the top debtors to the city's Sanitation Department. The mayor said those customers she...

Orange County still leery of Merrill Lynch. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Nearly eight years after the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, Orange County is still not comfortable doing business with Merrill Lynch--the firm that sold the county many of the investments that precipitated the financial disaster. In...

Retirement systems' investment earnings off 77 percent in fiscal 2001. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The Census Bureau reported in August that state and local government retirement systems' investment earnings in fiscal 2001 dropped 77 percent from the previous year. Fiscal 2001 investment earnings totaled $53.6 billion, a staggering $178...

New York already making plans to reduce spending. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Less than a month after New York City's budget took effect, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced during a meeting of the New York State Financial Control Board that the city would withhold 7.5 percent of the funds for every agency. The...

Ruling opens door for municipal telecom providers. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has overturned a Missouri law preventing municipalities from providing telecommunications services. Unless the ruling is reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Missouri localities will now be able to...

California cancels Oracle contract. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The State of California in July canceled its $100 million-plus, 10-year contract with Oracle for database software--a deal that exposed serious problems in the state's contracting system, spurred the elimination of the Department of Information...

Finance officers not optimistic about city finances. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... For the first time since 1993, a majority (55 percent) of finance officers say their cities are less able to meet their city's financial needs than they were the previous year. At least that's what the National League of Cities found in its...

Bond insurers could withstand downgrades of reinsurers. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... According to a recent report by Standard & Poor's, the four major bond insurers would be able to pay claims in the event of an economic depression resulting in a one-category downgrade of their reinsurers. The catalyst for the report was the...

North Carolina loses triple-A rating. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... Moody's Investors Service in August downgraded the State of North Carolina one notch to Aa1 from AAA. The rating agency cited the state's ongoing budget dispute, reliance on one-time revenues, and political and economic barriers to revenue...

"Tax-free cigarettes" costly to states. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... State attempts to compensate for declining revenues by hiking cigarette taxes are likely to be undermined by online vendors who flout a federal law that requires them to report such sales to state revenue officials, according to a new report by...

State wins Appeal, will take over Flint's finances. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... In August, the Michigan Court of Appeals overturned a July ruling by a lower court that the state did not properly consider the City of Flint's arguments against a state financial takeover. The decision paves the way for a state financial...

Glendale lands Arizona Cardinals stadium--finally. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
October 1, 2002... The two-year quest to select the site of a new $350 million stadium for the Arizona Cardinals ended August 29 when the Tourism and Sports Authority voted 7-1 in favor of the West Valley city of Glendale. Tempe, which has hosted the Cardinals...

Taking stock of auditor independence.(government-auditor relationship)
October 1, 2002... Finance officers can take a number of actions to maintain independence from external auditors and thereby strengthen public confidence in the fair presentation of government financial statements. The collapse of Enron and the debacle at...

Needs assessments and business case analysis for technology investment decisions.
October 1, 2002... As budgets get tighter, elected officials and governing boards are requiring CEOs and CIOs to undertake a rigorous business case analysis to justify technology investment decisions. This article presents a step-by-step methodology that has been...

Seeing is believing: the use of trained observer ratings for performance measurement.(government accountability techniques)
October 1, 2002... Trained observer ratings are an underutilized technique in the ongoing effort to enhance government accountability through performance measurement. This rather simple technique can provide reasonably reliable data on outcomes that otherwise...

Please don't go! why phased retirement may make sense for your government.
October 1, 2002... Two-fifths of state and local government employees will be eligible to retire between 2000 and 2015. Phased retirement is one strategy governments are using to retain skilled older workers and minimize training costs. Encouraging...

Treasury management software: ERP or best of breed?
October 1, 2002... The treasury management modules of ERP systems have evolved to the point that they now represent a viable alternative to stand-alone systems. But which option makes the most sense for your government? The growth in the use of enterprise...

Analyzing the cost-effectiveness of managed competition: make or buy? That is the question many governments must answer in the ongoing quest to deliver high-quality services as efficiently as possible.
October 1, 2002... Editors's note: This article is adapted from the author's book, Using Competition for Performance Improvement: A Resource Guide for Practitioners Advising Governments and Not-for-Profits, Copyright 2001, American Institute of Certified Public...

Survey reveals preference for passive investing. (Forum).
October 1, 2002... A new survey by GFOA and MBIA Municipal Investors Service Corporation sheds some light on how public investors are managing their funds in the current low-interest rate environment. The 2002 Survey on Investment Practices in Today's Market...

Past due: technology for revenue collection. (State of the Art).
October 1, 2002... To effectively deliver public services, governments must be able to collect the revenues that are rightfully due them. Significant levels of delinquencies can disrupt government operations, necessitate short-term borrowing, and even undermine...

Corporate excesses fuel regulation. (Federal Focus).
October 1, 2002... For the past two decades, the prevailing presumption in Washington has largely been that the best thing national lawmakers can do for the financial markets is to get out of the way. And for a time, it did seem that unfettered capitalism was the...

Public Dollars Transformation. (Book Reviews).(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... William R. Phillips, Bonnie L. Brown, Andrew C. West, and C. Morgan Kinghorn Mansfield, Ohio: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (224 pp) A recent survey of private sector managers and general managers revealed that 95 percent do not regard...

The War for Talent. (Book Reviews).(Book Review)
October 1, 2002... Beth Axelrod, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Ed Michaels Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business School Press (200 pp) While attracting and retaining quality employees has long presented a challenge to organizations of all shapes and sizes,...

Accounting, auditing, and financial reporting. (From the Library).(excerpt from Journal of Financial Management)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "Financial Information for Policy, Program, and Operating Officials" Irwin T. David Journal of Government Financial Management, Spring 2002, pp. 11-17. Policy, program, and operating officials are the federal government's real...

Budgeting. (From the Library).(excerpt from the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "Performance Budgeting--The Next Budgetary Answer. But What is the Question?" Bernard Pitsvada and Felix LoStracco Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Spring 2002, pp. 53-73. The final implementation...

Economic development. (From the Library).(excerpt from Economic Development Quarterly, conference industry)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "Convention Myths and Markets: A Critical Review of Convention Center Feasibility Studies" Heywood T. Sanders Economic Development Quarterly, August 2002, pp. 195-210. In this paper, Dr. Sanders asserts that many of the convention...

Management. (From the Library).(excerpt from Public Administration Review, local government and the Internet)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "Reinventing Local Government and the E-Government Initiative" Alfred Tat-Kei Ho Public Administration Review, July/August 2002, pp. 434-441. For better or for worse, governments have long been characterized by the Weberian model...

Pensions and benefits. (From the Library).(excerpt from Tax Policy and the Economy)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "Defined Contribution Pensions: Plan Rules, Participant Choices, and the Path of Least Resistance" James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte Madrian, and Andrew Metrick Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 16, pp. 67-113. This all-star...

Taxes and other revenues. (From the Library).(excerpt from Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "The Economics and Politics of Revenue Reform: A Case Study" James R. Ramsey Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management, Fall 2002, pp. 3 95-419. This paper presents a case study of Governor Paul E. Patton's...

Technology. (From the Library).(excerpt from CIO, outsourcing information technology operations)(Brief Article)(Excerpt)
October 1, 2002... "You Can't Outsource City Hall" Tom Field CIO, June 15, 2002 When San Diego County inked a seven-year, $644 million contract two years ago with a vendor consortium that would assume responsibility for the county's information...

Calendar.(Calendar)
October 1, 2002... OCTOBER September 29-October 2: Georgia GFOA 17th Annual Conference. Savannah, GA. For more information, visit www.ggfoa.org. September 29-October 2: International City/County Management Association 2002 Annual...

State, local corporate subsidies: a new coalition for accountability. (Commentary).
October 1, 2002... Amazement has been our typical response to the extent of corporate self-dealing, opaque bookkeeping, and conflicts of interest brought to light by the Enron debacle and subsequent scandals of 2002. But not for Greg LeRoy, founder-leader of...