Government Accounting

The Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent body of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), commissioned the first in a series of periodic surveys asking its stakeholders to share their views on how effectively GASB fulfills its mission. Overall, the 1,200 respondents said GASB has been carrying out its standard-setting charge appropriately and effectively. A minority, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the extent to which GASB standards meet the needs of all constituents and with the cost of implementing the rules.

All three stakeholder groups—auditors, those who prepare financial statements and those who use them—called the standards development process, especially the publishing of draft proposals for public comment, highly effective. But more than half of the respondents were at least moderately concerned that comments on proposed standards repeatedly come from the same group of stakeholders. The survey results are available at www.gasb.org/perception_study/GASB_Final_Report.pdf .