Top 10 Most-Viewed GFR Articles of 2022

Budget controls establish clear spending boundaries, ensuring that a government doesn’t spend more than the amount legally appropriated by its governing body—which promotes accountability and bolsters trust throughout the organization. Budget controls should be applied to all parts of the budget, including non-personnel, personnel, and capital budgets.

In June 2022, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued its latest expansion of the conceptual framework for governmental generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Concepts Statement No. 7,Communication Methods in General Purpose External Financial Reports That Contain Basic Financial Statements: Notes to Financial Statements (CS7).

Beyond the annual budget cycle and multi-year capital plan, governments need to identify long-term financial trends. Long-term financial planning involves projecting revenues, expenses, and key factors that have a financial impact on the organization.

In the spring and summer of 2022, more than two years since the declaration of the COVID-19 public health emergency, state and local governments across the country find themselves in one of the most challenging workforce development environments they have faced in the last 50 years.

If local governments are to find a long-term, dependable solution to their structural revenue and expenditure imbalances, they need to become more intentional about making financially savvy land use decisions.

Internal control checklists aren’t the most exciting topic to work on in a government. Frequently, they are left alone unless something goes wrong. If used correctly, however, a comprehensive, well-designed checklist can be the first line of defense to notify management that something is wrong.

GASB entered the era of the three-digit statement numbers on June 1, 2022, with the approval of GASB Statement No. 100, Accounting Changes and Error Corrections (GASB 100). At that same meeting, the Board also approved the issuance of GASB Statement No. 101, Compensated Absences (GASB 101).

If you have not regularly followed the technical accounting and financial reporting topics discussed inGFR, GFOA’s annualGAAP Update, and other GFOA updates, you may not be aware of the relative frequency with which the calculation of net investment in capital assets—a classification of net position reported in the financial statements of U.S. state and local governments—has been the focus of articles such as this.

Many local governments are grappling with the concept of “equity” in budgeting. Equity is one interpretation of fairness or justice. A central theme in debates about fairness and justice is equality versus equity. “Equality” means people should be treated the same by public policy to remove barriers to the individual’s success.