On Saturday, June 26th, CB&H’s Ed Mazur served as the on-site Issues Expert for the Richmond portion of a National Town Meeting on Federal Budget and economy, organized by AmericaSpeaks. Ed’s observations, reflections and commentary on the event are now through the Association of Government Accountants’ (AGA) newsletter, AGA Today.

Click here to read the full article.

AmericaSpeaks: Our Budget, Our Economy was a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget. 3,500 Americans from across the country came together to weigh-in on strategies to ensure a sustainable fiscal future and a strong economic recovery. The Richmond portion of the National Town Meeting took place at the Virginia State Capitol located at 1000 Bank Street in downtown Richmond.

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As state and local governments face a difficult operational and economic landscape, the Seminar will provide attendees with a variety of expert perspectives and timely advice. The schedule features several excellent speakers including North Carolina’s State Auditor, Beth Wood. Topics covered include a wide range of the prevailing issues facing government organizations.

Eight (8) hours of Yellowbook CPE are available through this seminar, at no cost to you. Specifics of the talks to be given will be available as the event approaches.

Seminar materials:

Speaker bios

Presentation Downloads

Note: North Carolina State Auditor Beth Wood’s presentation will be available at the event.

Edmundson – presentation

Davenport – presentation

Carter – presentation

Allison – presentation

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The Government Accountability Organization (GAO) released its latest in the series transparency reviews for State and Local administration of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). So far, 41 percent, or $114.8 billion, of funds have been paid out by the federal government. Investment so far has fallen largely to Health and Education initiatives. GAO expects the remaining 60 percent of funding to show greater increases in transportation, community development, energy and environment initiatives.

Health Care
As of the late-may report, the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) has paid out $12.7 billion, 92 percent of allocated funds in the first half of 2010. Funding continues to go toward plugging State budget gaps, and keep up with the increased Medicaid claim caseload. GAO sees potential issues in continuing funding amidst several state’s budget crises. New regulations under the Health Care Act will also affect ARRA funding.

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Part of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, which created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), involves regular Government Accountability Organization (GAO) investigation into national debt as managed by the Department of the Treasury. The most recent report, issued last month, is optimistic about the Treasury’s handling of national debt to this point.

The combination of the economic crisis and subsequent government response increased the national debt significantly. The Treasury was able, in a short period of time, to fund necessary expenditures. The challenge for the Treasury now will be to transition the nations debt portfolio back to pre-recession status.

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Last month, the Government Accountability Organization (GAO) released its analysis of the Davis-Bacon Act’s impact on Recovery Act implementation. Passed in 1931, Davis-Bacon requires federal contractors be paid a wage consummate with the prevailing local average. GAO found that, while most programs were unaffected, several are stalled due to wage rate analysis and payroll reporting requirements.

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued the results of its annual audit of the 2009 Consolidated Financial Statement (CFS). Since CFS audits began in 1997, the chief problem identified has been material weakness in internal control over financial reporting. As a result, a significant portion of the government’s assets, liabilities and costs therefore remain unmeasured to their full extent.

For the third straight year, GAO issued an unqualified decision on the Statement of Social Insurance. This, combined with inadequate interagency budget reporting; inadequate CFS preparation processes; and serious financial management issues within one of the largest reporting bodies, the Department of Defense; created significant impediments to a full CFS audit. Though information remains incomplete, GAO estimates the cost of improper payment due to material weakness to be at least $98 billion.

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According to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Data guidance has significantly hampered the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s ability to meet transparency requirements. Under the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA), the OMB is required to make the more than $1 trillion dollars in government spending available for tracking via usaspending.gov.

Of nine benchmark requirements, OMB satisfies six. Information gaps from the various reporting agencies, like state and local government, have caused overall data to be inconsistent or insufficient in the other three. Two of these deal with gathering and making available sub-award data from agencies. The other is a report on site usage and the reporting burden on recipients to be made to Congress.

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Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its report of California’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) funding through February 2010. California has received a significant portion of Recovery Act funds. As of late February, California had received $85 billion, or 10%, of nationally available funds. That state also faces a budget deficit of $21 billion, or 25% of annual expenditures, and a state unemployment rate of 12.3%, well above the national average of 9.7%.

The GAO examined Recovery Act funds state-wide, in the City of Los Angeles, County of Sacramento, and through several programs including Highway Infrastructure Investment, the Weatherization Assistance Program, and the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF), among others.

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The National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers (NASACT) report included two articles on American Recovery Reinvestment Act (ARRA) implementation, and can be accessed by clicking here.

The first, entitled Second ARRA Reporting Period Concludes, Issues Remain, cites that “frustration remains for states over federal agency guidance that differs from the overarching guidance provided to recipients by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Fear over more discrepancies in the future is causing further concern among reporting entities.” The article goes on to present examples of confusing guidance.

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has just approved the Ubuntu and Landscape systems management tool for use by federal purchasers. As reported by PC World, this change further opens up access to the GSA.

Landscape will be offered as part of Autonomic’s cloud computing platform for government customers. The infrastructure-as-a-service platform provides government customers with simplified computing power, storage and supporting infrastructure that can be acquired and utilized on-demand all from FISMA certified data centers with standard multi-factor authentication access.

This is welcome news for many developers, as Ubuntu is the predominant operating system for the development of cloud-based applications.

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