Whitney Afonso
Whitney Afonso is a professor of public administration and government at the School of Government. Her research focuses on state and local public finance with an emphasis on local sales taxes. Afonso won the Burkhead Award for best manuscript published in Public Budgeting and Finance in 2015 and the Curro Award for best student paper in 2010. She also has served on the executive committee of the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management since 2018.
In addition to her traditional research and teaching, her position at UNC engages her with elected officials and practitioners within the state. Afonso serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory; Public Budgeting & Finance; and State and Local Government Review. She also serves as an executive committee member for the Association for Budgeting & Financial Management. Afonso is the liaison for the North Carolina Local Government Budget Association.
She received her bachelor's degree from Vanderbilt University, completed a master's program at Texas A&M University, and received her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.
Gregory Allison
Gregory S. Allison is an expert in, lectures on, and provides technical support in the governmental accounting and financial reporting fields. Allison is the director of the School’s Municipal and County Administration course.
He joined the School in 1997. Previously, he was assistant director with the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada in Chicago, Illinois; former finance director for the City of Morganton, North Carolina; and an auditor with the international accounting firm Deloitte and Touche. He also co-authored the 8th and 9th Revised and 10th editions of Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting, published by Prentice Hall.
Allison was awarded the Outstanding Conference Speaker Award for both 2000 and 2001, the Outstanding Chapter Speaker Award in 2005, the Outstanding Discussion Leader Award in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2013, and 2015, the 5.0 Discussion Leader Award in 2014, and the 2014 R. Donald Farmer Award by the NC Association of Certified Public Accountants. He was awarded the Association’s Outstanding Member in Government Award for 2000–2001. He was also awarded the Albert and Gladys Hall Term Lecturer for Teaching Excellence for 2002–2004, and the Term Faculty Achievement Award for 2010–2012.
Kirk Boone
Charlotte. Boone began his governmental career in 1992 with the North Carolina Department of Revenue, where he was a property valuation specialist for 18 years. He is designated a Certified North Carolina Appraiser by the North Carolina Association of Assessing Officers, from which he received the Presidential Award in 2009 and the Henry W. Lewis Award in 2023.
Boone was selected as an International Association of Assessing Officers Fellow in 2024. He is also designated a Personal Property Specialist and Assessment Administration Specialist by the IAAO, where he is a national instructor and the co-author of several exams as well as a course, The Assessment of Personal Property. He is an Appraiser Qualifications Board-certified USPAP instructor. Boone earned a BA, cum laude, in mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
Authors
Benjamin Y. Clark
Ben Clark is an Assistant Professor in the School of Planning, Public Policy and Management at the University of Oregon.
Chris Nida
Chris Nida serves as Director of Research and Policy Analysis for the North Carolina League of Municipalities. In that role he manages the League’s research program, analyzes the impacts of legislation on North Carolina’s cities and towns, and produces the League’s annual projections of state-collected local revenue.
