Update from the Policy & Interpretations (P & I) Committee ...



State Association of County Auditors Conference

Update from Policy & Interpretations (P & I) Committee

April 2010

The P&I Committee held three teleconferences during this reporting period:

• September 20, 2009

• February 17, 2010

• March 4, 2010

Current Membership of the Committee is as follows:

|name |county / office |name |county / office |

|Donna Dunk |Chair – Sonoma County |Jim Erb |San Luis Obispo |

|Lesha Lu/Vinod Sharma |Santa Clara County |Phyllis Taynton |Solano County (acting Chair) |

|Andrew Sisk |Placer County |Nerahoo Hemraj |Monterey County |

|Mark Cousineau |San Bernardino County |George Lolas |State Controller’s Office |

|Anita Dagan |State Controller’s Office |Mike Adams |State Controller’s Office |

|Cong Lu |State Controller’s Office | | |

Recommendation for New Members is as follows:

|name |county / office |name |county / office |

|Julie Hagen |Santa Barbara County |Mark Krummenacker |Yolo County |

The following items were discussed:

• Association By-Laws

Additions to the Bylaws incorporating guidelines for the P&I Committee were approved by the Executive Committee in October 2009.

• GASB Technical Agenda

Responded to SEA Performance Information: Suggested Guidelines for Voluntary Reporting

Drafted a short memo to GASB referring to the Association’s previous letter to GASB dated July 1, 2008 which did not support SEA reporting standards being issued by the GASB. However the memo did outline support for other proposed amendments to Concepts Statement Number 2.

• Discussed ARRA Stimulus Reporting. Standards Committee requested P&I to develop guidelines. However, per discussion with P&I Committee, every county seems to be different as far as being centralized or decentralized in reporting/compliance. It would be difficult to set up standard ARRA procedures for all counties to follow since oversight for compliance and reporting was the responsibility of different depts. We noted some of the counties issued similar memos providing high-level guidance to their county departments.

• Discussed various accounting/reporting issues impacting each county:

➢ Cell Phone legislation

➢ 3% withholding on vendor payments

➢ Financial reviews, First 5 audits

➢ Property Taxes- Prop 1A Loan Securitization

➢ Cost claim/report certifications

➢ ARRA Reporting

• Currently updating the SCO Manual for recent GASB statements:

GASB 51- Intangibles

GASB 54-Fund Balance

• GASB 54-Fund Balance:

In January 2010 there was discussion from various committee members (Executive, Acctg. Stds., Budget Manual and P&I members) to discuss the impact of GASB 54 on the Budget Manual. The Budget Manual was recently updated, but did not reflect GASB 54 changes; in addition, the County Budget Act needed to be updated but requires legislative changes.

This group requested that P&I update the State Controller’s Manual for GASB 54 then the Budget Manual Committee would follow and update the Budget Manual/County Budget Act.

P&I Committee members reviewed the requirements of GASB 54 and proposed changes to the SCO Manual. P&I held two teleconferences to review the proposed changes, however, due to the significance and complexity of the changes, P&I has planned an ‘in person’ meeting in April to discuss all of the proposed changes. We expect to have the final changes to Standards by the end of May/early June.

• Next meeting

Sacramento on April 30, 2010 to review all of the proposed GASB 54 changes to the SCO Accounting Procedures Manual for Counties.

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