The AGA Weblog

Do You Trust Your Government?

By: Marie Force, MA

Marie Force, MA, has been AGA’s director of communications since January 1996.

Do you trust your government?

In this era of runaway gas and oil prices, the questionable ramp-up to a prolonged war, mortgage industry meltdowns and record deficits, most readers will probably say, “No, I emphatically do not trust my government.” But wait. Are you sure? You really don’t trust your government? I beg to differ.

I’ve written about this topic several times in AGA’s Journal because it’s one that resonates with me on many levels. In my nearly 13 years at AGA, I’ve had a front-row view of the hard work going on every day to make federal, state and local governments more accountable to the people they serve. I’ve witnessed the Herculean efforts under way to clean up the mistakes of the past, to report results in a manner that is useful to decision-makers and citizens alike, and to plan for a more fiscally sound future.

AGA’s Citizen-Centric Reporting Program, which encourages all governments to produce four-page reports to their citizens, has been widely embraced, a sign to me that government officials and taxpayers are hungry for just this kind of information. Yet, despite all of this hard work and the many significant steps forward over the last two decades, the results of AGA’s Public Attitudes Toward Government Accountability and Transparency 2008 Survey show a pervasive displeasure with and distrust of government among the more than 1,600 people surveyed.

In deciding how to answer the “Do you trust your government?” question, most Americans would look to headlines in their local newspapers and doom and gloom stories on TV newscasts full of the government bashing that is so common these days, especially during a hotly contested election year. But I contend that just about every adult citizen in this country does implicitly trust his or her government, and our daily actions prove it.

I credit Past National President Doug Haywood, CGFM, for implanting this notion in my mind many years ago when he declared, as we gathered for a luncheon in one of the massive hotel ballrooms we use for the PDC, that we had just proven our trust in government by walking into the large room and never pausing to worry that the roof might cave in on us. We had proven it by eating the government-inspected food and drinking the government-inspected water. We had proven it by stepping onto airplanes to get to the conference without having the first clue as to who was going to fly us through the air at 30,000 feet until after the flight was completed and they bid us a good day on our way out the door.

We rely on stoplights, we call 911 and someone comes, we breathe non-toxic air (in most places), and swim at pollution-free beaches. We take elevators to the top of the Empire State Building, as I will do this weekend, aware of the inspection certificate neatly framed over the wall of buttons, but without a glance at the details. The elevator has been inspected. We are safe to proceed. Why? Because a government employee has made sure the elevator is in proper working order.

Why is it that we do these things every day without the first thought as to whether or not we should? We do them, without that first thought, because our government—whether federal, state or local—has been there before us to make sure we are as safe as we can be. Are there holes in the system? You bet. Does government fail on occasion? Absolutely. Is there such a thing as a perfect system? Nope. But I contend that our system is better than most. The late newsman Tim Russert was fond of saying, “What a country.” I couldn’t agree more. I trust in my government, and so do you.

Does it bother you that so many people say they don’t trust their government when their daily actions prove otherwise? What can we at AGA and as a citizenry do to change this perception?

TOMORROW: William Morehead, Ph.D., CGFM, AGA National President-Elect Designate, on "Think Big! Act Courageously! Make a Difference!"

Best Practices and Lessons Learned from CEAR FY 07 Reviews

By: Evie Barry

Evie Barry is director of Performance Reporting at AGA.

We’ve come a long way baby! On May 21, 2008, AGA honored 17 federal agencies and agency components with the prestigious Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting (CEAR) for their Fiscal Year 2007 Performance and Accountability Reports (PARs) or Pilot Program Reports. Did I say 17? WOW! Along with the 17, seven other reports were submitted and several of them came close to receiving the Certificate.

Back in 1998, the CEAR Program received six reports for FY97. None of the reports was awarded the Certificate. In 1999, 10 agencies submitted their PARs with two receiving the Certificate—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Social Security Administration. SSA has continued its run and received the Certificate again for the 10th consecutive year.

So what made some of this year’s reports not only good, but also worthy of our Certificate? The Office of Management and Budget instituted a new program, the Pilot Program Reports, for the FY07 reports, which they hoped, would streamline the reports and make them more meaningful and transparent for the public. The CEAR Program received five “pilots” to review and two of the five received the Certificate— Department of Energy (DOE) and the Small Business Administration (SBA). DOE’s report made excellent use of graphics to enhance its information. The report also displayed the agency’s leadership challenges in an innovative manner. SBA chose to reduce the length of its report and was very responsive to the previous year’s recommendations from the CEAR Program reviewers. Another feature of their report was responding to the inspector general’s summary of serious management and performance challenges with a letter addressing the IG’s challenges, which clearly demonstrated a high degree of cooperation.

Two agencies, Peace Corps and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) received the Certificate for the first time (OFHEO's director will be blogging here on July 2, talking about the agency's experiences in receiving the CEAR for the first time). Both prepared traditional PARs. Peace Corps prepared a concise and easy-to-read report with a goal structure that was easy to follow. The performance goals and indicators were relevant to the strategic goals. OFHEO submitted a reader-friendly report that provided a good background on important, current issues. The sidebars were excellent primers for helping explain a complex government function that is rich in acronyms. The presentation of the performance measures that reflected the status of the entities regulated by OFHEO, rather than just activities performed by OFHEO, was instrumental in making the report useful.

Three more reports also demonstrated several features that helped their agencies receive the award. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) did an excellent job preparing their PAR, with a short readable and clearly written report. Not only was the presentation informative, but also through the use of colors, charts, textboxes and tables that were balanced, judicious and effective. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) contained several features that deserve mentioning. The CFTC History-at-a-Glance provided readers with an interesting and informative recap of the agency. The report also provided a clear explanation of the information the reader should expect in each section by including a “How this Report is Organized.” The transparency demonstrated by the chief financial officer in his acknowledgement of a significant deficiency is noteworthy in that he was not obligated to do so. The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) prepared a well structured, logically organized and easy-to-navigate report. Reading the report from cover to cover enabled an unfamiliar reader to understand and learn about PTO, its mission and performance. PTO also prepared a Highlights report that included a reduced but highly readable yet informative Management’s Discussion and Analysis. A CD-ROM of the PAR was included as an insert to the document.

To quote Mark Carney, CFTC chief financial officer: “We believe that the PAR is an extremely valuable communications tool. This is especially true today. The rapid escalation of food and energy prices is having a dramatic impact on our everyday lives. As a result, Congress is highly focused on how commodity futures markets influence prices—and what my Agency is doing to protect market users and the public. Our PAR is the first document we provide to members, and staff, as they attempt to understand what the CFTC does and how the futures markets work. We also believe past CEAR review suggestions have helped to make explanations of our complex programs more accessible to readers. For that we thank you."

Though I did not list all of the best practices for each of the 17 winning agencies, a compilation of these will be online later this month on the CEAR webpage.

My questions to you are: Is our CEAR Program widely known and what can we at AGA do to advertise the merits of the program to the federal community?

TOMORROW: Danny Werfel, Deputy Controller, U.S. OMB, on "Are the Financial Management Winds Changing?" 

Financial Management Discipline

By John J. Radford, CGFM, CIA, CFE

John J. Radford, CGFM, CIA, CFE, a member of AGA’s Mid-Willamette Valley Chapter, State Controller, Department of Administrative Services, State of Oregon

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t read yet another story of a government systems implementation, reorganization or capital project that is way over budget, way behind schedule or has substantially missed the mark on promised benefits. The result is yet another blow to the credibility of the government’s ability to spend public dollars efficiently and effectively. But the cumulative effect is much more sinister. These events have harmed our ability to attract needed talent to the cause of public service, they have eroded public support for government projects in general, and increasingly causing public managers to shy away from making necessary long-term public improvements and investments.

All of us know many of the causes for projects going astray. Poor project management, ill conceived or incomplete business requirements, lack of project sponsorship, poor change management, nonexistent quality control, bad communications, and what appears to be an almost universal lack of understanding, identification and documentation of risk.

From a hardcore and unforgiving CFO perspective these situations all too frequently boil down to a lack of independent and objective planning and an enforceable thread of accountability. Somebody has a good idea or in the case of large organizations many have good ideas; and then they spend all their time marshalling their political connections and resources to justify and secure the necessary funding to implement their good idea. Disciplined cost estimates and realistic benefit assumptions take a back seat to self-interests.
How many times have you seen major projects seemingly created on the fly or major investments initiated and approved in helter-skelter fashion by multiple layers of management and business units that should have been well researched, coordinated and planned. How many times have you seen failed projects and public investments where responsibility and accountability is so diffused that it is nearly impossible to hold anyone to account. Too often we see projects approved on the basis of reputation, long-standing relationships and a one-page business plan.

Public organizations that fail to research, think through, do the homework, and document their strategic enterprise goals, objectives, actions and investments based on rationalized priorities will tend to have and make the kind of helter-skelter tactical investments that are often over-sold, duplicative, and over-budget. Not to mention costly to maintain, modernize, update, and control. The notion of a well thought out Master Plan comes to mind. The Master Plan has to be flexible, but generally, no off the cuff tactical investments are made unless they are part of and conform to the current Master Plan.

Public organizations that fail to insist on well documented, rigorous and completed Business Case analyses prepared with a strong sense of independent and objective thinking for each major investment will likely continue to have out-of-control projects and questionable benefits. The Business Case analysis must not only demonstrate need, but must show multiple options along with costs, pros, cons, benefits, and risks of each option. It should be signed by the responsible parties in authority fixing accountability upon them. It should be independently vetted to verify facts and the efficacy and completeness of the facts, analysis and recommendations. The requirement of a formal Business Case and subsequent decision makers (including elected officials) approving the project or investment should be widely known and accepted as an accountability process.

Of course, the development of Master Plans can take a lot of effort and cost a lot of money and Business Cases too can take a great deal of work and expense and expose management to the risk of accountability. In the short run, it might be cheaper and less risky to keep it business as usual.

Most would agree that the gyrations we see in our credit and capital markets today can be directly traced to a lack of financial management discipline. When it comes to allocating public money, it can no longer be business as usual. We have to find the will and determination to insist on adequate planning, documented business cases, and put processes in place to hold public financial managers accountable.

If you don’t agree, what other management tools and techniques do we have that can be deployed to stem the continuous drum beat of failed projects?

TOMORROW: Meredith Williams, CGFM, Executive Director, Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association and AGA Past National President, on "Retirement Security—Getting It Right"

Running Deficits While Your Budgets Are Balanced

By: Sheila A. Weinberg

Sheila A. Weinberg is the founder & CEO, Institute for Truth in Accounting

All governmental entities derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Governments therefore have a special responsibility to report on their actions and the results of those actions. These reports must provide useful information that enables the citizens and their elected representatives to make informed decisions. To be useful, financial information must be understandable, reliable and relevant. To be relevant this information must be available on a timely basis. Because an informed electorate is the basis for a sound democracy, providing such information is an essential part of accountability in government.

As a result of corporate accountability failures, citizens are demanding greater transparency and integrity in financial disclosure. These accountability failures serve to re-enforce the importance of proper accounting and reporting practices. It is critically important that such failures not be allowed to occur in the public sector. To avert the financial difficulties experienced by failed corporations, like Enron and WorldCom, states’ constitutions require balanced budgets. The Governmental Accounting Standard Board (GASB) believes one of the intentions of balanced budget laws is that the current generation of citizens should not be able to shift the burden of paying for current-year services to future-year taxpayers. GASB further believes that this concept, known as “inter-period equity,” is a significant part of accountability and is fundamental to public administration. Inter-period equity is a significant part of accountability because it reduces incumbents’ ability to promise voters future benefits without having an impact on the current budget calculations.

Because the provisions of the most states’ budget laws are not clear, the budgetary intent of balance is often avoided. Strong evidence of this can be found in states’ annual financial report.

While each state’s budget is major policy setting document, the state’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFR) is the report card on that policy. This report gives more accurate pictures of states’ finances.

For example in my home state of Illinois, in July 2005 the legislature passed and the governor signed a “balanced” budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 2006. Two years later, the FY 2006 audited CAFR reported that Illinois’ primary government functions ran a deficit of more than $800 million. Illinois CAFRs for the prior four fiscal years (FY2002-FY2005) also showed annual deficits of $4.2 billion, $4.1 billion, $2.5 billion and $2.1 billion respectively. For more than twenty years Illinois’ budgets have been “balanced,” yet according to the Illinois CAFR, the state government is in a financial hole of more than $44.5 billion.

This is not unique to the state of Illinois. Most states are required to “balance” their budgets, but run “structural” deficits. How can states run “balanced” budgets, but run “structural” deficits at the same time? Well, it all depends on how you count. The budgets are calculated using a very complicated and intricate method, I call “political math.” These rules are defined by elected officials, who calculate budgets essentially on a cash basis, which allows liabilities and the real condition of states’ finances to be hidden. On the other hand, the audited financial reports are calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). GAAP is established by the independent GASB, which has no political stake in the outcome of the financial reports. GASB dictates that the states’ government-wide financial statements be calculated on the accrual basis. Accrual accounting provides a more comprehensive indication of the total financial activity of government and the long-term effects of current policy. Accrual accounting records revenues when earned and records liabilities when expenses are incurred, regardless of the timing of related cash flow. Accrual accounting helps governments meet two important objectives of financial reporting: determining whether current-year citizens paid for the services they received in the current year, or if the costs of services were shifted to future-year citizens; and calculating whether a government’s financial position has improved or deteriorated as a result of the year’s operations.

It is essential that such information be available during the each state’s decision-making processes. Each state’s budget process is the principal annual vehicle through which the legislature and the governor allocate the states’ current and future resources. The budget process is each state’s most important decision-making processes. Therefore, the budget should be presented in a way that facilitates policy analysis and promotes public accountability.

To expose the state governments to a greater degree of public scrutiny and accountability, the citizens and their elected representatives must be informed of the current and long-term financial consequences of the spending and revenue decisions included in the budget. Therefore the citizens and their elected officials should be given an estimation of the surplus/deficit that would be reported on the accrual basis financial statements, if a proposed budget was implemented. This estimation should be calculated by the state official responsible for producing the state’s CAFR. The estimate should be done using the accrual accounting concepts outlined by the independent GASB. To be a part of the important budget process citizens and their elected officials must been given this relevant information.

The Institute for Truth in Accounting is currently researching the difference between states’ budget calculations and the results reported on the CAFRs. Do you know the methods that your state’s elected officials use to avoid the intent of the balanced budget requirement? What could be done to get legislators to consider the amounts reported on your state’s CAFR when drawing up the next year’s budget? Your insights would be most helpful in our research.

TOMORROW: Eric Berman, Deputy Controller, Commonwealth of Massachusetts and AGA GASAC Representative, on "The GASB's Technical Agenda"

Questions on posting comments or wish to subscribe to the feed that sends blogs right to your e-mail? Find instructions here. Want to be our guest on the Blog? Contact Marie Force, AGA communications director, at mforce@cox.net.

Are the IGs and Other Federal Auditors Doing Enough to Improve Government Accountability?

By: Mike Kristek, CGFM

Mike Kristek, CGFM, a member of AGA’s New Mexico Chapter, recently retired from the U.S. Department of Energy. He is a longtime member of AGA’s Journal Editorial Board.

On March 3, 1993 two documents were issued that speak to the question “Are the IGs and other federal auditors doing enough to improve government accountability?” The first document was the Gore Report on Reinventing Government (Gore Report). In this document, then-Vice President Al Gore noted that the federal government was filled with good people trapped in bad systems: budget, personnel, procurement, financial management and information. The report went on to note that the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO, now known as the Government Accountability Office) had published a 28-volume report on federal government management problems and that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget had a list programs that carried a significant risk of runaway spending or fraud. Finally, it noted that in 1990 the Chief Financial Officers Act was passed to overhaul financial management systems and was followed in July 1993 by the Government Performance and Results Act, which introduced performance measurement throughout the federal government. The Gore Report then made 13 recommendations on how to improve the federal government’s financial management.

The second report was from the Office of the Chairman, Administrative Conference of the United States, titled Inspectors General: An Institution in Need of Reform (Administrative Conference Report). The report questioned if the IGs’ overall approach to improving accountability was workable and questioned if the IGs reports were getting the necessary public or congressional attention to fix outmoded financial management systems.

A November 2007 Federal Times article stated that the IGs were the vanguard for achieving government accountability. However, I believe the IGs fall short of that lofty goal. My basis for this pessimistic view—25 years as a federal auditor with the last 16 working for an inspector general of a large federal department, as well as the annual GAO reports that continue to show problems with government accountability. The IGs are hampered with resource issues that prevent them from doing the work necessary to actually improve government accountability. Specifically:

• Audit follow-up is extremely rare. Most IGs do not have the staffing necessary to perform current audits of all programs in their departments in a timely manner let alone follow up on previous audits. In the last few years, the IG I worked for discovered that on several occasions, department management concurred with recommendations and stated they would implement the recommendations. However, we found in a few instances that no action was ever taken despite assurances to the contrary. If recommendations are not actually implemented how do mangers hope to improve accountability?

• Large federal contractors want to have self-governance. Consequently, the large contractors are often very resistant to IG audits and inspections. Some go as far as trying to deny access for necessary documentation and do all they can to try and stop the audit. IGs, in this era of political correctness, try to not be seen as overly aggressive and want to cooperate so they are often reluctant to push the issues. If the contractors do not want the light of truth shown on their programs, does that mean they do not want to improve accountability?

• Finally, the Annual Financial Statement Audit is itself a stumbling block to improving federal government accountability. Approximately half of the IGs’ time and money is taken up by this financial audit. However, a dirty little secret of the auditing profession is financial audits will never uncover fraud, waste and abuse. They are not designed to do so. A financial audit will tell you if you have accounted for your expenditures. It will not tell you if those were wise or efficient expenditures. The financial audits will not determine if programs are valuable. The financial audits will not determine if the government is operating effectively. The Administrative Conference Report noted the need to examine programs and root out those that are poorly designed with multiple administrative layers and fail to fund new financial management systems. If huge financial and personnel resources go to an effort that only tells of what we already know (there is not good financial management in the federal government) how will the resources be found to do the necessary audits to achieve improved accountability?

My question for the readers of this blog is what can be done so the IGs can live up to their promise of being the vanguards for greater government accountability?

MONDAY: Kelly Stefanko, CPA, deputy city auditor, City of Norfolk, VA, on "Changing the Face of AGA to Appeal to Generations X and Y"

Questions on posting comments or wish to subscribe to the feed that sends blogs right to your e-mail? Find instructions here. Want to be our guest on the Blog? Contact Marie Force, AGA communications director, at mforce@cox.net.

AGA CEAR Program Sets Standard for Federal Performance and Accountability Reporting

By: Eveanna Barry, MS

Eveanna Barry, MS, is director of Performance and Accountability, AGA

On May 21, AGA will hold its fourth black-tie celebration to honor the recipients of the Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting (CEAR) Program. This award is given to those agencies that produce high quality Performance and Accountability Reports. Our program was established in 1997 in conjunction with the Chief Financial Officers Council and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to improve financial and program accountability by streamlining reporting and improving the effectiveness of such reports. Any CFO Act agency or After Tax Dollar Act agency is eligible to submit their report for review and comment.

Through our program, AGA advises agencies on how to prepare integrated and user-friendly reports that clearly show what an agency accomplished with taxpayer dollars and the challenges that remain. New this year, OMB offered an alternative method in preparing the Performance and Accountability Report. The Pilot Program alternative required agencies to submit an Annual Financial Report in November and a Highlights document and Annual Performance Report by February 1, 2008. Eleven agencies participated in this new program.

The first year of CEAR Program we reviewed six reports and there were no awards. Ten years later, AGA reviewed 21 reports and awarded 11. This year, the eleventh, AGA received 24 reports, five of which were Pilot Program reports. Though the reviews are not yet completed, we expect to have a record number receiving the CEAR award. What this says is that the quality of reports has improved significantly and AGA’s recommendations are being implemented, resulting in improved reports that are more useful and complete.

Over the years, the agencies have exhibited some creative means to get their message across to report readers. For example, the Social Security Administration highlights the report on its home page and provides an excellent description of what the report contains. The Small Business Administration provides instructions for accessing the Internet page that offers information about its programs in Spanish. The SBA report also uses color codes to signify the status of the agency actions needed to address the inspector general’s summary of the most serious management and performance challenges. Finally the U.S. Department of Labor provides a description of the process and limitations in collecting performance data.

While the reports are an excellent source of information, who is the target audience? Should it be Congress, congressional staff, OMB, or agency internal staff? What about the citizen who wants to learn more about what type of services an agency provides? A 300-page document, which includes pages and pages of compliance data, clearly does not tell the agency’s story. Then should a Highlights document be produced for each agency? What about the four-page Citizen-Centric Report?

As the next administration is introduced to the Performance and Accountability reports (or Pilot Projects), what would you like to communicate? How can the reports be streamlined and less labor intensive but still provide the necessary information that can be used by “the target audience?”

TOMORROW: Rhonda Reinke, CGFM, CPM, Transportation Improvement Board, State of Washington, on "Why Traditional Budgeting Just Doesn't Work and What Government Can Do About It"

Questions on posting comments or wish to subscribe to the feed that sends blogs right to your e-mail? Find instructions here. Want to be our guest on the Blog? Contact Marie Force, AGA communications director, at mforce@cox.net.

Wake Up, Accountants!

By: Sheila A. Weinberg

Sheila A. Weinberg is the founder & CEO of the Institute for Truth in Accounting (IFTA). The IFTA is an organization dedicated to promoting honest, accurate and transparent accounting at all levels of government. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, the IFTA works to expose accounting deficiencies while promoting better, more accessible delivery of accurate government financial data—and, in turn, providing a foundation for more informed public policy. Information about the IFTA’s latest project can be found at: www.truthin2008.org

“Wake Up, America!” was the title of former Comptroller General of the United States David Walker’s article in the winter issue of AGA’s Journal of Government Financial Management. After reading that your country is more than $50 trillion in the hole, you probably figured out that we are living in a financial nightmare. With states’ unfunded liabilities totalling tens of billions and federal deficits in the hundreds of billions, the numbers are so mind-numbing that I am sure your eyes are glazing over.

Wake Up, Accountants! Your country needs you.

As an accountant and financial manager you are in a unique position to use your experience and expertise to guide us out of this financial mess. As a caring citizen you have a responsibility.

Here are some small, achievable steps that you can take to help yourself, your family, friends, neighbors and your country.

1. The first step to solving any problem is to know where you are. You have the ability to understand the government’s fiscal condition and the related financial consequences. Become educated about where we are at and where we are headed. Learn about how the federal budget works. Visit our website, www.truthin2008.org to learn more about our debt. Join David Walker at a Fiscal Wake-Up Tour event. You can find the tour’s schedule on the Concord Coalition’s website. Read the federal financial report at: www.fms.treas.gov/fr/index.html 2. In Walker’s article he pointed out that citizen education and public engagement are vital. Educate the people around you. Take the information you learn and put it into terms that your friends, family and co-workers can understand. 3. Educate others in your community. Write letters to the editors of your local newspapers. 4. Educate candidates for office, including current office holders. Most politicians are not financial experts. Meet with your candidates and offer your assistance to help them understanding our current financial condition, including our unfunded promises. As accountants and financial managers we are experts at budgeting, so help the candidates understand the federal budget. Ask them where they plan to get the money to fund the campaign promises they are making. 5. Walker also stated, “Members of Congress also need more explicit information on the long-term costs of spending and tax bills—before they vote on them.” Encourage your elected officials to demand this information before they vote on bills. If people within the government will not calculate the long-term financial consequences of proposed legislation, then work with others in the accounting community to calculate these numbers and provide them to members of Congress, the press and the public. 6. Early in 2003 Walker gave a speech at the National Press Club titled, “Truth and Transparency.” He highlighted, “When it comes to the U.S. Government’s financial condition and fiscal outlook, the federal government’s current measurement and scorekeeping approaches leave much to be desired. The result is an incomplete and misleading picture of the federal government’s current financial condition and future fiscal outlook, as well as a delay in the timeliness in which we address important issues.” I urge you and the accounting community to become involved in determining the measurement system that would provide the public and their elected officials with the information needed to make knowledgeable financial decisions. Accountants and financial planners work every day to prepare, analyze and verify financial documents to provide information to our clients. We should do the same for our federal government and our follow citizens. We know the type of information needed and the best formats to present this information. AGA’s Citizen-Centric Reporting model is a perfect vehicle to provide citizens with the information they need. You should encourage all governmental entities to prepare such a document, especially the federal government. You can find the prototype for the federal government that I prepared at: http://www.truthinaccounting.org/pdf/fed/fed_citizens_report07.pdf 7. To facilitate the issuance of financial statements that are transparent and truthful, become active in development of accounting standards. Follow the activities of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) and testify before these boards.

Walker often quotes Teddy Roosevelt. “Aggressive fighting for the right (cause) is the noblest sport the world affords.” As an accountant I have found this cause to be a perfect use of my skills for the good of our country. My work through the Institute for Truth in Accounting has shown me that each of us can make a difference. Please join me and David Walker in our efforts to educate the public and our elected officials. It is up to you to help your country wake up on the right side of this financial mess.

Are the other steps that you believe accountants could take to alert fellow citizens to our country’s financial condition? Do you believe accountants and Americans will wake up before it is too late?

TOMORROW: William Morehead, Ph.D., CGFM, chair of Accountancy, Computer Information Systems and Finance at Delta State University in Cleveland, MS. He is AGA’s National President-Elect Designate, on "Education: The Proof is in the Numbers."

Questions on posting comments or wish to subscribe to the feed that sends blogs right to your e-mail? Find instructions here. Want to be our guest on the Blog? Contact Marie Force, AGA communications director, at mforce@cox.net.