Local governments

Pictured here, left to right: School Board President Kelly Bashaw; Superintendent Dr. Greg Baker; State Auditor Pat McCarthy

Recently, the Performance Center provided several resources on accounting for capital assets to help local governments with financial reporting. Another group of assets, which fall below a government's capitalization threshold, should also be considered when establishing and evaluating asset policies and other internal controls. In Washington, we frequently refer to these as “small and attractive assets,” but they these could be described using different terminology.

Are you reporting your activities in the correct fund type? Local governments should analyze the services they are providing and determine if the fund types used are appropriate.

An enterprise fund is a fund that may be used to report any activity for which a fee is charged to external users for goods or services. We have observed that local governments sometimes are not reporting enterprise activities in the correct fund type, and noted the following areas of concern:

Today we are publishing the culmination of four years of audit work on Alternative Learning Experience programs, available here.

With the condition of infrastructure serving as a point of national discussion, useful life estimates for capital assets make for a timely accounting topic. Governments must maintain support for the useful life estimates they use for assets, and have a process to reassess the estimates periodically.

Large state agencies will get more in-depth reviews and smaller agencies will get more frequent accountability audits thanks to a boost in funding included in the supplemental state budget approved Thursday.The Office of the Washington State Auditor requested an additional $700,000 to support accountability audit work, and the Legislature agreed.

From left to right: Laura Marrone (Admin Tech), Rose Lauer (Assistant Office Manager), Commissioner/President Jerry Thornton, Sr., State Auditor Pat McCarthy, Commissioner John Thompson, Shane Young (General Manager) & Commissioner/Secretary, Renea Blanchette

State Auditor Pat McCarthy, County Treasurer Vickie Clelland, Financial Management Officer Heidi Penner, County Auditor Robert Waymire

 

The Local Government Performance Center has been renamed The Performance Center. Local governments can expect the same excellent training, technical assistance and resources that SAO has long provided to help improve performance and effectiveness. The Performance Center hosts Lean Academies, creates financial tools and shares online resources to help governments improve the value of their services to residents. For questions or inquiries into how The Performance Center can help, call (564) 999-0818 or email center@sao.wa.gov.