GASB proposal addresses various practice issues

GASB proposed a standard Monday that would address various accounting and financial reporting issues for state and local governments that have been identified during the implementation and application of GASB rules.

The exposure draft, Omnibus 201X, proposes guidance on a multitude of issues, including:

• Blending a component unit when the primary government is a business-type activity currently reporting a single column for financial statement presentation.
• Reporting goodwill and “negative” goodwill.
• Classifying real estate held for both operations and investment purposes by insurance entities.
• Measuring certain money-market investments and participating interest-earning investment contracts at amortized cost.
• Timing of the measurement of pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) liabilities and related expenditures recognized in financial statements prepared using the current financial resources measurement focus.
• Recognizing on-behalf payments for pensions or OPEB in employer financial statements.
• Presenting payroll-related measures in required supplementary information for purposes of reporting by OPEB plans and employers that provide OPEB.
• Classifying employer-paid member contributions for OPEB.
• Accounting for and reporting OPEB provided through certain multiple-employer defined benefit OPEB plans.
• Simplifications related to the alternative measurement method for OPEB.

Comments on the proposal are due Nov. 23 and can be emailed to the director of research and technical activities at director@gasb.org, referencing Project No. 37E.

—Ken Tysiac (ktysiac@aicpa.org) is a JofA editorial director.