News

On February 1, the House voted to approve HR 2209, bipartisan legislation that would require federal regulators to classify all investment-grade, liquid, and readily marketable municipal securities as high quality liquid assets (HQLA). This important legislation is necessary to amend the liquidity coverage ratio rule approved by federal regulators last fall, which classifies foreign sovereign debt securities as HQLA while excluding investment-grade municipal securities in any of the acceptable investment categories for banks to meet new liquidity standards.

On January 22 the GFOA’s Executive Board approved five best practices and an advisory to provide guidance to government finance officers in the areas of budgeting, accounting, retirement benefits administration and debt issuance.  A summary of each is provided below.

Budget Consolidation

 As Congress and the White House return to discussions on comprehensive federal tax reform in 2016, GFOA is urging our members to help engage federal lawmakers regarding the need to preserve the tax exemption on municipal bond interest.

The Tulsa Metropolitan Utility Authority (TMUA), like many of its peers, needed to identify revenue to replace its degrading system infrastructure. Over the years, the agency had become less effective, and while the water utility’s core services were strong, inefficient business processes had created stress points. The authority was looking at increasing water and wastewater bills, which would create hardships for lower-income households. It therefore began looking for ways to use performance management technology to link core utility services with support services.

The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) will host its 110th Annual Conference, “Sharing Solutions and Strategies,” May 22-25, 2016, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Registration for the event is open on GFOA’s website.

The conference is expected to bring together thousands of public finance professionals through: 

In an effort to expand broadband connectivity statewide, the Commonwealth of Kentucky is in working out a partnership with a consortium of private firms to design and build a 3,200-mile fiber-optic system. The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority, acting as a conduit issuer, sold $230.05 million of 30-year tax exempt bonds for the project in August 2015. Fitch assigned the issuance a rating of BBB+ and Moody’s Investors Service gave it a Baa2.

The State and Local Legal Center (SLLC) filed an amicus brief with the Ohio Supreme Court urging the court to rule that Ohio’s commercial activity tax (CAT) applies to online vendors that sell in the state. The SLLC argues that Quill Corp. v.

On November 2, 2015, the president signed into law a two-year budget agreement that raises spending caps by $80 billion above the levels agreed to under federal sequestration in 2011. The cap increases – $50 billion in FY 2016 and $30 billion in FY 2017 – were split evenly between defense and non-defense accounts.

As part of the mayor’s Back to Basics program, the City of Los Angeles, California, embarked on an open data initiative aimed at providing up-to-date information about the city’s performance on key initiatives and progress toward city-wide goals. The open data portion of the Back to Basics program sought to provide residents and employees with information that would help them better understand the city’s challenges, creating greater visibility that would lead to solutions.

Alliance for Excellence in School Budgeting members met last week at GFOA’s office in Chicago to develop a set of guiding principles for the budget process, based on GFOA’s new best practices. These guidelines center on aligning district resources with the areas that will have greatest impact on student achievement. The Alliance members are from 35 school districts across the country, from the largest to some of the smallest, and from urban, suburban, and rural areas.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has invited GFOA members to participate in an important survey regarding the activities that you engage in when preparing and publishing your audited annual financial reports in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

Solidifying its position in the conversation on national health-care policy, GFOA’s Executive Board unanimously ratified a policy statement on the 40% excise tax on health plan premiums – the so-called Cadillac tax. This issue is vitally important to states and municipalities, which continue to work diligently within sometimes severe budget constraints to provide benefit plans that will help them attract and retain a quality workforce, in competition with private-sector wages and salaries.