In November 2017, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued an Exposure Draft entitled Accounting for Interest Cost during the Period of Construction. The GASB is proposing a standard that would significantly change the way certain interest costs are accounted for during the period of construction of capital assets. And (for once) for the better! If approved in its current form (and I do not anticipate any real challenges to this proposal), governmental entities would simply recognize interest as an expense or an expenditure in the period it’s incurred, whether or not it is during the construction period. As such, there would be no further interest capitalization to calculate and report.
Category: Tax Policy (page 3 of 6)
KISS is only one acronym or abbreviation for the minimalist approach I’m referring to in this post. Another popular way to put it is “less is more”. Maybe my favorite is “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.
Good morning! I wanted to make people aware that there will be a free workshop on 12/13 from 11-12 as a pre-conference event for the North Carolina Local Government Budget Association’s Winter Conference (NCLGBA). This year’s NCLGBA conference is in Durham at the Washington Duke Inn.
Implementing Field Experiments for Innovation and Success
Is your service delivery not as effective as it should be? Could your department streamline current processes? Do you see problems in your organization but lack ideas on how to address it? If so, this is the pre-conference workshop for you.
Much has been written about the impact of the Great Recession on state governments and larger cities, but we have yet to see deep analysis on how smaller municipalities weathered the recession. To get the ball rolling my students and I have analyzed the impact of the recession on smaller cities in Georgia and Florida and are currently adding an additional eleven states to the analysis. To begin we selected two states that have somewhat different revenue structures:
By Zach Mohr and Madison Esterle
One of the fundamental problems for local government public budget and finance research in the United States is the availability of audited financial data in a format that is easy to collect and analyze. This is a problem for both researchers that are trying to assemble large data sets and for practitioners that live in states that do not have centralized collection of this data. It is also a problem for cross state data collection, which is quite common for local jurisdictions that live on the borders of states. Undoubtedly, there is much duplication of effort and a great need for local government financial information that is comparable for research and practice.
“Don’t mess with the farmers!” I’ve heard these words of wisdom a few times in my career, always from well-meaning individuals who had come out on the wrong side of a PUV auditing program. They had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t politically feasible to conduct stringent audits of their farms in the present use program, and that the county was better off letting everyone but the most egregious non-qualifiers go through.
Possibly the most well-known method of delivering the mission of the School of Government is through teaching. But to me personally, another very important delivery method is through advising. Last year, 45 faculty and other professionals at the School of Government reported 13,105 advising events. I hope my individual advising can become an increasingly valuable resource for you. I believe I can be more valuable to everyone when you individually ask me to be involved. A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to provide advice on a presentation. The Randolph County commissioners requested the assessor’s office to do something that makes government better in my opinion. The request was to be more transparent and informative for their taxpayers, but more specifically regarding the county’s business personal property (BPP) tax audit program. The assessor’s office was asked to put together a presentation on their program and they asked for my ideas. I want to share some of those ideas so you will hopefully share your thoughts in the comments section and we can grow this resource for everyone’s use. Maybe this post can be a tool for collaboration. Continue reading
Do you want your bonds to kill your city’s bond ratings?
Do you want your bonds to go into default?
Do you want to be responsible for a backlash against the mayor/council for not planning for a future you should have known was coming?
Do you want your city to become even more clogged with traffic, but this time the cars are empty and slowing everyone down?
Ignoring autonomous vehicles (AVs) may be possible today, but just know, they are coming soon–and by soon I mean this year (2017). While AVs may not yet be mainstream transportation today, do not count on it just being something your grandkids use. Cities have to start planning now, or their leaders will be saying YES (begrudgingly) to those questions above. A new report out from the folks at the Sustainable Cities Initiative at the University of Oregon is looking to help you deal with these questions. You can read our report here.
There has been a lot of interest in how to tighten up the relationships between citizens and their local governments. At the local level there is a lot more opportunity to work with and get feedback from citizens. This is accomplished by many communities and in various ways. I believe, and I know this will be shocking, that the budget is the single best place to engage citizens. The budget is the encyclopedia of government. The budget reflects what government does and reflects priorities based on spending decisions, as well as changes in the community as reflected in changes in the budget from year to year.
***I love this quote from a VP debate in 2012. 1) It is true. 2) It is hilarious because we are living in a time of continuing resolutions rather than budgets at the federal level, so I guess we prioritize not making hard decisions and not working together.*** Continue reading
Cities and counties are constructs of their respective states. Counties are almost always created by state constitutional decree. Cities are municipal corporations created by state legislative action. Regardless of the method of creation, states exercise significant control over what cities and counties can and cannot do. From the taxes levied to debt issuances to services that can or cannot be provided, the state determines the role of local governments within its borders. States have been pre-empting local policies at an increasing rate. The National League of Cities has documented a number of these actions. Popular targets are restrictions locally imposed minimum wages (24 states), paid leave (18 states), and public provision of broadband internet (17 states). Of these three, North Carolina is included in all. There are many other areas where states have been pre-empting local actions. This top-down view suggests that local governments have little ability to chart their own course. However, this isn’t quite right. There are many ways that cities and counties push back against state policy. In the news now, Sanctuary Cities in Texas are pushing back against new laws restricting their actions. This is a highly visible example; however, cities and counties often have other options that are less visible.
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