2022 Annual Conference
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Sessions for Sunday, June 5
Getting Your Time Back: Strategies to Improve Your Personal Productivity
Finance officers report not having enough time during the day to accomplish all that needs to be done. As alternatives to working longer, GFOA has developed a series of research reports that provide strategies for reducing interruptions, hosting more effective meetings, managing your time better, and improving your own levels of productivity. Attend this session to learn how you can employ these tactics improving your performance and levels of satisfaction with your role.
The Price is Right: Setting User Charges and Fees for Government Services
State and local governments, utilities, and stand-alone business-type organizations use charges and fees to help fund services (both external and internal), and well-designed charges and fees can reduce the need for additional revenue sources and promote service efficiency. However, for many organizations, setting user fees and charges can be difficult. This session will explore the important elements to consider during the charge and fee setting process for all organizations including organizational politics, community preferences, cost recovery, and fairness. The session will also highlight from GFOA's rethinking revenue research on segmented pricing and use of imposed fees.
Sessions for Monday, June 6
Year in Washington: GFOA FLC Update
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021 provided much needed funding for state and local governments, and constant need to focus on Washington, DC for the latest guidance, regulations, and updates. Add on IIJA infrastructure implementation efforts and potential new attempts to regulate the municipal market, GFOA's Federal Liaison Staff is prepared to give you the most recent information from Washington DC and provide opportunities for outreach efforts. Attend this session to learn about important developments in Federal Policy related to state and local governments and where we are likely headed for the rest of 2022.
Identifying, Classifying, and Disclosing Component Units
It is often difficult to determine whether a legally separate entity should be reported as a component unit (CU) of another government and, if so, whether it is properly included as a fiduciary, blended or discretely presented CU. Topics include the criteria for identifying and classifying CUs and the disclosures required to explain how and why each has been incorporated.
Team First: Case Studies in Collaboration
Teamwork and collaboration can be difficult to describe, but you know it when you see it. For the past two years, GFOA has seen it in our members and documented great examples in Government Finance Review. Attend this session to discuss in an interactive discussion based format how leading finance officers and their teams have discovered the benefits of having a strong team culture.
Paying Not to Perform: Compensated Absence Accounting Under GASB’s New Guidance
GASB's statement on Compensated Absences reexamines and updates the accounting and financial reporting for compensated absences. This session will delve into the use of paid time off (PTO) by some governments rather than the more traditional approach of separate sick and vacation leave, and explain how PTO and other forms of compensated absences will be accounted for and reported based on the new standard.
Preparing an ACFR Statistical Section
Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) require governments that produce an annual comprehensive financial report to include a statistical section. This session will focus on how to create the required schedules for each of the five categories of a statistical section, and where to obtain the relevant trend data using some practical examples from a variety of governmental entities.
ESG in Muniland: What Issuers Need to Know
E-S-G, Environmental-Social-Governance, factors are becoming more commonplace in the municipal market. Whether it is issuing labeled “green” or “social” bonds or material ESG factors related to an entity’s general credits, governments need to be aware of how they can drive these conversations. Join this session to get grounded on these topics, including an extensive review of GFOA’s new Best Practices in these areas. Governments of all types of sizes will be able to learn and use information to assist with their next credit rating presentations, disclosures that may be appropriate for posting, and when and how labeling a bond as “green” or “social” may be appropriate.
Sessions for Tuesday, June 7
Do You Feel Lucky: Planning Under Uncertainty
Long-term financial planning is widely considered a “best practice” in public finance. This is for good reason, as it is important to think strategically and long term in a volatile and resource-constrained environment. However, this lack of clarity might discourage governments from planning at all or put governments at increased risk of failing to adapt to changing conditions. In this session, we will discuss how you can adapt your planning process to environments characterized by political, economic, technological and other kinds of uncertainty. Attendees will also learn how to adopt processes where plans are continuously reviewed and modified to be responsive to changing conditions.
Debt Trends for Small and Infrequent Issuers
Governments that may not be frequently in the debt market still have numerous responsibilities and need to be aware of market issues so that they manage their debt portfolio well and are prepared for their next debt issuance. This session will focus specifically on how smaller governments and those that infrequently issue debt manage their debt program, use different products such as bank loans, state revolving funds and bond banks; and maintain compliance with federal tax and securities law matters.
Coming Up Next: Implementing GASB 94 (P3) and 96 (SBITA)
Coming on the heels of implementing new guidance on leases, governments must now implement GASB statements on accounting and reporting for subscription-based information technology arrangements (SBITAs) and public-private and public-public partnerships (PPPs). This session will review the new statements and share lessons learned from governments that have implemented these standards, as well as those that can be extrapolated to these arrangements from implementations of the lease standard.
Not Again! Avoiding Common Financial Reporting Errors
Each year, GFOA staff and volunteer reviewers for GFOA's Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting program perform reviews on over 4,300 annual comprehensive financial reports (ACFRs). This session will examine a number of the more common deficiencies identified during these reviews, with a special emphasis on the calculation of net investment in capital assets.
Sessions for Wednesday, June 8
Technology Solutions for Debt Management
There are numerous new products emerging to help governments specifically with various aspects of their debt management program. Whether it is overall tracking and management of an entity’s debt portfolio, disclosure and investor relations systems, or accessing market data, this session will give an overview of what is available and upcoming to help governments with their debt management responsibilities.
Making Peace with Leases
Many governments have or will soon be finalizing their first financial statements prepared using GASB’s new lease guidance now in effect. For some, this will be a post-mortem, a chance to compare notes on how the transition went, and get suggestions on ways to make future accounting and financial reporting for leases easier. For others, this will be an opportunity to fine-tune initial implementation before "pulling the trigger" on lease accounting. Speakers, including practitioners who have already implemented the new guidance and auditors, will address some of the more common issues seen with implementation thus far.
