The AGA Weblog

Transitioning into Transparency

By: Joseph L. Kull, CGFM

Joseph L. Kull, CGFM, a member of AGA’s Washington, D.C. Chapter, is a director in the Washington Federal Practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.

I'm told that the AGA Blog is read by more than 1,000 people per week. Wow, that's a lot of people to share ideas with. The whole idea of blogging, You Tubing, My Facing, and the gazillion other things you do/search/find/dive into on the Internet also leads very nicely into the subject du jour.

First the transition. Everyone in Washington seems to be offering the next administration their ideas on management issues and priorities for the next President’s Management Agenda. Regardless of who gets elected, the government's management problems are not going to go away. It's just a matter of what we call them and which ones get the attention.

I'm not going to venture out into the transition advice quagmire. I just hope the next administration builds on the progress made to date, and since this is the AGA Blog, let's take financial management. In 2009, we can really talk about better financial management [and all that goes with] rather than untimely and often unreliable financial reporting as we did back in 2000. Whatever agenda is established, there should be clear priorities, adequate resources and authority, and reasonable time frames to get things done.

The big unknown is the impact this interconnected 'flat world' is going to have on what we need to do and how we do it. And both will be driven largely by our customers, the taxpayers, as it should be. With their laptops, cell phones, Blackberrys, the world literally at their fingertips—the 'infrastructure' of our connected world—they will drive what information and services they want, and will expect them to get the information and service when they want it, not when we can provide it.

In our financial management world, some states and cities are already opening up their books so the taxpayers can see how their money is being spent. USAspending.gov already provides some information on grants and contracts, and people better start paying attention to the Obama-sponsored Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which requires grant and contact information down to the sub-recipient level.

Program and financial information should be available to the taxpayer. The 'can't' answer just won't fly much longer. Times are tight, and people will start asking questions. Can you provide the answers? When others can and do, how will an organization that is unwilling or unable fare?

Is your agency, department, ready for this kind of transparency? If not, why not? And wouldn't you rather give people the information rather than have them cobble it together themselves, subject to their own spin and bias?

TOMORROW: Warren Master, Editor-in-Chief, The Public Manager on "Transforming Bureaucratic Cultures"

Can Government Employees Be Know-It-Alls?

By: Julie Brenman

Julie Brenman is Director of Strategic Initiatives, city of Durham, NC

I work for the city of Durham, North Carolina. When people find out where I work, they expect me to know everything that goes on in the city. Why did you cut off my water? Why do you let my neighbor’s grass grow so long? Why is Durham’s tax rate so high? What are the plans for that vacant piece of land down the street from my house? When will my street be paved? I do my best to keep up with the latest news in Durham and the happenings in all city departments. Even though my job duties do not require that I be able to answer all of the questions posed above, I am fortunate to be in a position in the city government where I can often respond intelligently to questions I am asked about most city services. When I don’t know the answer, I promise to follow-up and get back to them. I also let people know about Durham One Call, our central call center, all the time.

Sometimes the questions I get are a little more far-flung. Why does Duke Power cut down our beautiful street trees? Why are you spending my tax dollars in Iraq? Why does the School Board fight? Why doesn’t my mail come on time? The common theme in all of these questions (and yes, I really have been asked all of these) is that they are not questions about city government. Nonetheless, as a city employee, there is an expectation that I know the answers to all of these.

If I wanted to call Sears to see if they had a particular shoe I was looking for, I would not expect the employee in the automotive section to be able to answer my question. Nor would I expect someone at Macy’s be able to tell me if Sears carried the shoes. Yet many of our citizens expect all city employees to be able to answer any question about any service provided by the city or any other level of government. They get frustrated when their calls get transferred and occasionally irate if we are unable to answer the questions.

I do not expect a street maintenance worker to know the crime rate. But I would like for all Durham employees to know that the information on crime rates is collected and used by our police department. And by the same token, I would like our police officers to know that we report on the condition of our streets on a regular basis.

Government employees at all levels need to develop better ways to communicate with citizens about what we do and how well we do it. Regular publication of performance reports that are easily understandable and accessible to the public will help promote a better understanding of government services. The use of 3-1-1 and other central call centers helps citizens navigate through some of the confusion. Involving citizens in determining what is important for them to know also improves the government’s ability to meet citizen expectations.

While we must do better at educating our own employees about our performance and helping people understand who to call for different services, it wouldn’t hurt if our citizens also reflected on their own expectations and realized that it is not realistic to expect government employees to be know-it-alls.

Oh, and in case you are interested, I’d be happy to answer any of the questions the citizens’ posed to me.

TOMORROW: Sheila Weinberg, Founder and CEO, The Institute for Truth in Accounting, on “A Study of Our 50 States”

AGA’s Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting Program

By: Eveanna Barry, MS

Eveanna Barry, MS, is AGA's Director of Performance & Accountability.

Thanks to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, AGA has received several years of funding for our Service Efforts and Accomplishments Report Review Program. Using the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s 16 suggested criteria as its foundation, AGA has developed a set of guidelines that are used to evaluate how well the government or other organization informs the public about its performance. The review is not intended to evaluate the quality of the government or its performance. Rather the focus is entirely on the report’s usefulness to the public and other decision-makers.

There are three components to the program—a review team, the guidelines and communication of recommendations from AGA to the entity on how it can make the report more consistent with the suggested criteria. Based on a score of each suggested criteria, entities can receive the Certificate of Achievement in Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting.

GASB research has shown that these criteria, identifying a purpose and scope, using relevant measures of results and reporting reliable information, to name a few, are a valuable tool in preparing an SEA or performance report. These criteria provide an excellent framework for preparing not only a performance report but also a business plan or strategic plan. GASB is continuing to modify these criteria and within the next year or so, will have finalized them. For more information on GASB’s deliberations, visit www.gasb.org.

Over the past four years AGA has had approximately 50 entities submit their performance report for review. Seventeen entities have received the Certificate. I thought I might take this opportunity to highlight how some of these entities have used their report in managing government and communicating to citizens.

• Ankeny, Iowa uses performance measurement as part of the city’s budgeting process. Performance-related forms are submitted along with a department’s budget.
• Des Moines, Iowa mails a copy of their performance report to each household. It is used to initiate community-wide thinking regarding the outcomes achieved by the city government each year.
• King County, Washington uses the performance information to help officials focus on what’s important—the key goals of county government and whether those goals are being met. It has allowed a more strategic perspective.
• Oklahoma Health Care Authority collects and reports on the mission and goals of the agency and posts this information on the website. Data collected is used to make decisions regarding resource allocation both at the state level through the budgeting process and at the agency level with strategic planning.
• Oregon Department of Transportation uses their report as a supplement to the agency budget request. And it’s all about providing citizens with a quick, easy way to see how ODOT is doing, especially in the area of driver and motor vehicle services.
• Palo Alto, California provides its report to the city council, staff and public. The public periodically uses facts from the report when discussing such things as acres of dedicated parkland, public safety, library usage and street maintenance.
• Portland, Oregon surveys Portland’s 90+ neighborhoods and uses the feedback as the integral part of their report.
• Prince William County, Virginia uses its report to provide the community, Board of Supervisors and county management with results achieved by the different agencies with the funding provided to them. Their report identities a six-year trend for the entire county.

As you can see the uses of a performance report are varied but the overall message to me is loud and clear—provide your community, governing body and management with useful information to make decisions on resource allocation and service delivery that communicates government is accountable and credible in its work.

How is your government using its performance report to make decisions? Do your measures drive program budgets? What can AGA do to promote the use of measures in making the tough decisions by management and the governing body? And if you have been preparing performance reports, how have you involved citizens in its development and what has been the reaction?

Do you want to know more about performance reporting? Attend AGA’s Fourth Annual Performance Management Conference in Seattle, Washington, Oct. 27–28. Watch our website at www.agacgfm.org/pmc for information about the conference. Interested in receiving our Perspectives on Performance newsletter? Contact Evie Barry at ebarry@agacagfm.org for more information.

TOMORROW: AGA Past National President Jeffrey Hart, CGFM, on the upcoming AGA community service trip to New Orleans

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.

Openness Drives Accountability

How One East Tennessee County is Opening the Doors of the Courthouse
By David R. Bennett, CGFM, CPA

David R. Bennett, CGFM, CPA, a member of AGA’s East Tennessee Chapter, is Blount County Assistant County Mayor/Director of Accounts and Budgets, and AGA National Treasurer

Openness Drives Accountability! What does that mean? What does that do to the perception that government functions and government decisions occur in a smoke-filled back room by a bunch of older men? What happens when you open the doors to that so called back room? First, let’s set up where America believes we are at all levels of government in terms of transparency. Then, we will talk about what Blount County, Tennessee is doing to change that perception, and more importantly, to give its citizens what they deserve—access to their money. In a recent national survey about openness and transparency, AGA found that citizens overwhelmingly do not believe government is open, much less transparent. The survey found that all levels of government are lacking when it comes to being transparent. So why is that? Could it be that voter apathy is so rampant in this country because the American citizen can’t see what is happening inside his or her government? Could it be that we, as government accountants, don’t practice what we preach? The answer to both is YES! So what should we do to change that perception and to open government to our citizens? The following is what we have been doing in Blount County to be open and transparent.

First, the Internet. Why don’t we use these technologies to give access to the citizens’ records? That is just what we have done in Blount County. Today anyone with access to the Internet can go to our county website (www.blounttn.org) and access the county’s accounting records. Any citizen has the same access to the real-time accounting records that I do as finance director. Next, we have placed all our financial reports online. From our annual Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) down to the monthly financial reports presented to the County Commission, citizens have the same access to this information as our elected officials do. And finally, we have made available online access to our monthly county credit card bills. These statements are not merely the summary statements, but are the detailed spreadsheets we create to pay our bills. Again, as I said in the beginning, openness drives accountability. If we in government know that our families, our friends and our constituents have the ability to watch where we spend their money, we are much less likely to spend it on things that would be considered improper. Don’t you think?

Second, we have just completed our first Citizen-Centric Report. As we all know, all government reports are tough to read. I, as a finance director for a local government, have a hard time reading CAFRs. How can we expect our citizens to read it? AGA’s Citizen-Centric Reporting Program is a process whereby we report to our citizens in a short, executive summary-level report. No more than four pages, the Citizen-Centric Report is our attempt at providing our citizens with a summary of what their government has done for them. In Blount County, we have just completed our first report for the second quarter of 2007. Our plans are to complete the report for each quarter of each fiscal year and to make the fourth quarter report an annual report to be published in our local newspaper.

So has the trip thus far to truly opening government been all peaches and cream? Absolutely not! As long as you’re honest, upfront and transparent, all the arguments made by those folks that would tear down progress become disputable, for they feed on the perceptions that government is closed. Often I say, let the sun shine and the rats will all run and hide. So at all government levels, we should tear down the walls, slam open the doors and give the citizens what they want. And remember, Openness drives Accountability.
What are you doing in your government to tear down the walls, throw open the windows and let the sunshine in?

TOMORROW: Eveanna Barry, MS, Director of Performance & Accountability, AGA, on AGA's Service Efforts and Accomplishments Reporting Program

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.

Reporting + Transparency = Better Decision-Making

By: Joseph L. Kull, CGFM

Joseph L. Kull, CGFM, a member of AGA’s Washington, D.C. Chapter, is a director in the Washington Federal Practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.

Everyone wants better reporting and transparency, supposedly so we can make more informed decisions about our government. Just look at the recent AGA/Harris survey that found citizens, by and large, believe that public sector—federal, state and local government—reporting does not meet their expectations. They want their government to be open and honest, and such information does influence their vote.

In other words, give us good, honest information and we'll judge you with our vote. Now that's scary. No wonder why we have problems with public sector reporting. What is the incentive for public sector reporting to come clean if the reward is losing your job?

But even when we come clean, the outcome isn't always what we expect. Let's look a classic example and arguably the most dangerous threat to the health of our nation: fiscal sustainability. In the next 10 years, we are about to take a deep financial dive. It will impact everyone at every level of government. And oh, by the way, we have the facts, that information IS already out there, and EVERYONE AGREES we're tanking.

So here good reporting and transparency have identified a real problem that has to and can be fixed and yet no one will touch it! Why? You know why—higher taxes, programs cuts, lost elections. It's a no-win situation.

I'm all for putting good, clean information out there. Let people know what's going on and why, and then let them decide if it's good or bad. But at the same time we have to understand that human nature being what it is, all the facts in the world won't stop us from acting in our own best interests. That is the paradox of transparency. Transparency is power, but so is the lack of it. After all, if I don't tell you what's going on, you won't know what's going on, kind of like want you can't see can't hurt you.

So how do we solve this dilemma, caught between the public's desire for transparency, and the politician's desire to be less than candid? And while you're thinking about that one, I'd like to hear your views on how we get citizens and politicians to act on the information, because I'm not seeing big spenders voted out [to the contrary] or reforms proposed [they're not even discussed!] that would remedy some of our most fundamental problems.

TOMORROW: Penny Wardlow, Ph.D., CGFM, Government Accounting Consultant, on "What About Small Governments?"

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.