Instructor

The Intermediate Accounting session will provide participants with an in-depth view into the world of governmental accounting. Topics to be addressed include deep dives into the financial reporting entity; accounting and financial reporting for cash and investments, including more complicated financial instruments; accounting and financial reporting for capital assets, including how to determine what to capitalize and how to determine useful lives, and the ins and outs of lease accounting; accounting for compensated absences; accounting and financial reporting for pensions and retiree healthcare benefits, and social security; accounting and financial reporting for debt, including amortization of premiums and discounts and refundings and extinguishments; accounting and financial reporting for other long-term liabilities; and fund balance and net position classification issues.

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The GASB Standards Update will provide participants with working knowledge of recently released standards of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).  Standards that will be addressed include financial reporting model improvements, including a detailed look at new guidance that has been provided to improve management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A) letter; disclosure requirements associated with capital assets held for resale and other capital asset disclosure requirements, and new guidance related to subsequent events (that is, those events that occur after the end of the fiscal year, but before the financial statements are available to be issued).

In addition, this session will bring participants up-to-speed on projects that currently are being deliberated by the Board or are being researched by the GASB staff.  Those projects include infrastructure assets, going concern uncertainties and severe financial stress, revenue and expense recognition, voluntary digital financial reporting, and structure of standards (that is, original pronouncements versus Codification).

Finally, this session will devel into some of the more complex and unique features found in governmental accounting, including the application and explanation of deferred inflows and deferred outflows of financial resources, and demonstrate how to research governmental accounting issues.

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The Performeter is an analytical tool that takes a government’s financial statements and converts them into useful and understandable measures of financial performance. The Performeter uses financial ratios and a copyrighted analysis methodology to arrive at an overall rating of 0-10, which indicates the overall financial health and performance of a government. Since 2002, PITI-VITI has been developing Performeters annually for each of the insular areas. As a result, cumulative data over many years is now available for each government. 

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