Lake Wobegon on Stimulants: – ‘Excellence’ Awards Abound For Government Financial Statements – Quicktake

Take heart. Excellence is everywhere.
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Peanut
5 years ago

Who came up with Lake Wobegon headline? Your daughter? It’s rather creative and still true.

K L
5 years ago

Country Club Hills has a wall full of them!

Richard
5 years ago

6963 governments in IL. 338 receive Cartificates of Excellence in Financial Reporting. The Certificate of Excellence is awarded for “going beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles.” This highlights the difference between government work and private sector work. In the private sector, no Certificate of Excellence would be awarded for achieving or even exceeding a minimum requirement. In fact, this level of performance would likely get you fired. In government work, 95% of the government financial reporting groups are satisfied with achieving or even not achieving minimum requirements in their job. Why does government cost so much for… Read more »

David Montgomery
5 years ago

This article is pretty snarky, and short on explaining how the awards came about or what they signify. Below is an explanation of the awards from the GFOA website. Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting Program (CAFR Program) The GFOA established the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting Program (CAFR Program) in 1945 to encourage and assist state and local governments to go beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles to prepare comprehensive annual financial reports that evidence the spirit of transparency and full disclosure and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in… Read more »

David Montgomery
5 years ago

I read that, recently, there were 6,963 government entities in Illinois. So according to the article above, 338 were awarded this certificate. One might question, investigate, and report on what the non-awarded entities are doing or not doing. That might actually be interesting and useful to people.

jim palermo
5 years ago

Five percent of Illinois governmental bodies won the award. Sounds exclusive. But how many governments submitted for the award? And didn’t get it? Is there an application fee for the award? What percentage of GFOA members won the award? How many governments won the award in one year and didn’t receive it the following year? Answers to these questions might also actually be interesting and useful to people.

David Montgomery
5 years ago
Reply to  jim palermo

I agree. It’s a shame this author didn’t pursue those. Too deep, I guess…

jim palermo
5 years ago

My town boasts of receiving this award every year, even as General Fund balances decline and police and fire pension funding deficits increase. The award is little more than adhering to a prescribed budget format-fonts, margins and the like, and has nothing to do with using sound financial policies.

nixit
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark Glennon

The format deserves a bad grade. On page 181 you referenced, it lists the “CHANGES IN NET POSITION” for the “Last Ten Fiscal Years” but starts with the oldest year and doesn’t carryover the line item descriptions, making it hard to follow. They repeat this practice in different sections. Proper financial reporting lists the years in descending order with the most recent first.

Eileen A. Ellis
5 years ago

Excellent. And milk is good food (Paid for by the American Diary Association)

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