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November 2009 |  BY BRUCE W. CHASE, CPA, PH.D., JOHN B. MONTORO, CPA |  Article

Fund balance is an important measure that represents the difference between a fund’s assets and liabilities. The overall objective of fund balance reporting is to isolate that portion of fund balance that is unavailable to support the following period’s budget. Because governmental funds’ measurement focus is the flow of financial resources, the balance sheet primarily reports assets and liabilities that represent net spendable and available resources for these funds.

October 2009 |  Article

The AICPA on Friday published a working draft of the AICPA Audit and Accounting Guide, Entities With Oil and Gas Producing Activities. The draft, which was developed by the Accounting Standards Executive Committee and the Entities with Oil and Gas Producing Activities Task Force, addresses many new accounting issues that have emerged over the years, according to Dan Noll, the AICPA’s director of accounting standards.

October 2009 |  Article

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board released an exposure draft, Subsequent Events Codification of Accounting and Financial Reporting Standards Contained in the AICPA Statements on Auditing Standards. The proposal would incorporate the guidance in the AICPA’s Statements on Auditing Standards (SAS) AU section 560, Subsequent Events, into the authoritative FASAB literature.

July 2009 |  Article

GASB issued two exposure drafts of proposed statements, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Service Concession Arrangements and Financial Instruments Omnibus, which are intended to increase transparency. The exposure draft on service concession arrangements (SCAs) would set accounting and financial reporting requirements for partnership arrangements between governments and private entities and multiple governmental entities.

July 2009 |  Article

The SEC on Wednesday proposed amendments to SEC Rule 15c212 that prohibits brokers, dealers, and municipal securities dealers from purchasing or selling municipal securities unless they reasonably believe that the state or local government issuing the securities has agreed to disclose such things as annual financial statements and notices of certain events, such as payment defaults, rating changes and prepayments.

July 2009 |  Article

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) is seeking comment on a Revised Exposure Draft, Accounting for Federal Oil and Gas Resources. The proposed standard would result in recognition of the estimated value of royalties from federal oil and gas leases and changes over time in those values as well as the amount of royalties designated for distribution to nonfederal entities such as state governments.

July 2009 |  Article

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) on Tuesday issued a standard, effective immediately, that incorporates the hierarchy of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) into FASAB’s authoritative literature but makes no changes to the order of priority for accounting and financial reporting guidance. Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) no.

July 2009 |  Article

GASB acknowledged the precarious fiscal health of state and local governments around the country as it issued an exposure draft intended to give guidance on the effects of Chapter 9 bankruptcies. Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code applies to filings by governmental entities. The standard setter also issued an ED intended to improve consistency in the financial reporting and measurement of retiree health insurance and other postemployment benefits (OPEB).

January 2009 |  Article

The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) issued Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) 33, Pensions, Other Retirement Benefits, and Other Postemployment Benefits Reporting Gains and Losses from Changes in Assumptions and Selecting Discount Rates and Valuation Dates. The standards in SFFAS 33 require (1) gains and losses from changes in longterm assumptions used to estimate liabilities for federal employee pension and other retirement benefits, and other postemployment benefits to be displayed as discrete line items on the governmentwide entity’s and the component entities’ statements of net cost and (2) components of the expense associated with

January 2009 |  BY Steven Gottlieb, Robert Meulmeester, Matthew Bohlin |  Article

FASB Statement no. 157, Fair Value Measurements, introduces new concepts and practices to the world of financial reporting, including some that are beginning to impact the fair value measurements of real estate assets.