GASB proposal addresses a variety of governmental accounting issues

GASB proposed an accounting standard Monday that would address a wide range of issues for state and local government finance departments that have been identified by the board as needing attention.

The issues included in the exposure draft, Omnibus 20XX, include:

• Accounting and financial reporting for exchange or exchange-like financial guarantees.
• Classification and reporting of certain derivative instruments that are neither hedging derivative instruments nor investment derivative instruments.
• Clarification of certain provisions of:
  • Statement No. 87, Leases;
  • Statement No. 94, Public-Private and Public-Public Partnerships and Availability Payment Arrangements; and
  • Statement No. 96, Subscription-Based Information Technology Arrangements.
• Extension of the period during which the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) is considered an appropriate benchmark interest rate for the qualitative evaluation of the effectiveness of certain interest rate swaps.
• Accounting for the distribution of benefits as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
• Disclosures related to nonmonetary transactions.
• Pledges of future revenues when resources are not received by the pledging government.
• Updates of certain terminology for consistency with existing authoritative standards.

Comments can be submitted by email to director@GASB.org by Sept. 17.

— Ken Tysiac (Kenneth.Tysiac@aicpa-cima.com) is the JofA’s editorial director.