Summer is here, and it's time for swimming, barbecuing and garage sales. If you have ever held a garage sale, you know that cash talks. Cash has the power to convince you to sell your worldly goods, but if you are not careful, it can also vanish into thin air. As auditors, we would say that if cash could really talk, it would tell you to protect it.
As part of “Cascadia Rising”—a series of exercises from June 13 to 16 to test Washington and Oregon's response and recovery capabilities to catastrophic earthquakes—SAO has compiled some steps governments can take to financially prepare for potentially large earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Originally published June 2, 2022. Updated August 9, 2023.
As local governments experience staffing shortages, such as for law enforcement, correction officers, paramedics, utility linemen and many others, existing employees may work increased overtime. Monitoring overtime is important, so we’re republishing this article that provides you with tools to do it.
Local governments track many assets with multiple objectives in mind. Whether your objective is accurate and complete financial reporting or safeguarding public assets, tracking all of your government's assets can quickly become a pain.
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) established the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (CSLFRF) program, administered by the U.S. Treasury, Assistance Listing Number 21.027. One eligible use of these program funds allows governments to replace lost revenue in order to avoid cuts in their services.
It's an understatement to say that COVID-19 has presented significant challenges this year. We have witnessed its devastating effects physically, prompting us to take extra health precautions and increase virus testing. At the same time, it's important to take precautions fiscally to ensure local governments maintain financial health. With decreased revenue and increased costs, local governments must be especially vigilant and use reputable resources and tools to inform them when making difficult financial decisions.
A new reporting feature in the Financial Intelligence Tool makes it simple for a local government to project its data into the future. Governments, with their often limited or restricted resources, have a responsibility to plan for the future. That management responsibility is often required by state law through the budgeting process. Although a local government won't hear from us about how to budget or plan for the future, it can still take advantage of our statutory requirement to publish each government's financial data, which we do using FIT.
Look forward
The interactions between customer and cashier have become complicated by the pandemic. How do you collect payments but keep everyone safe? If you are exploring your options, here are some resources that might help you.
Credit card and online payment options
Accepting credit cards or direct bank withdrawals can be a simple and contactless way for citizens to pay over the phone or via your website. If you choose these options, there are a host of things to consider, such as:
We're jumping into some lessons learned from the 2020 filing season regarding Schedule 06 – Summary of Bank Reconciliations. Even if you don't file a Schedule 06, these tips are useful when preparing any bank reconciliation, or other schedules or reports. These were identified as the most common areas of emphasis when SAO staff helped clients in 2020.
Financial planning and forecasting are essential activities of finance and leadership, and especially so in the age of COVID-19.
The Financial Intelligence Tool's (FIT) financial health indicators provide “retrospective” measures of financial health based on historic data. However, any government can use these measures to help plan for the future.
Benefits from integrating FIT's financial health ratios