Government accounting

The exposure draft covers various accounting and financial reporting issues that were identified during implementation, application, and due process on GASB standards.

The board released updated implementation guidance for its leases standard, along with other accounting standards for state and local governments.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board issued a proposal to improve the accounting and financial reporting requirements for state and local governments.

The international board released four proposals for improving various aspects of government accounting.

The board proposed changing “comprehensive annual financial report” to “annual comprehensive financial report” because the abbreviation sounds like a racist term in South Africa.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is looking for feedback on a proposal to improve the guidance on compensated absences for state and local government employees, along with disclosure requirements.

To the detriment of many state and local governments, budget decisions are being made based on bad accounting information.

U.S. officials responsible for preparing for a pandemic routinely raided funds for public health emergencies, diverting money from vaccine development to pay for other projects at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a federal watchdog said Wednesday.

Thanks to vagaries of the accounting world, Donald Trump’s administration had a chance in the final weeks of the presidential race to cancel more than $200 billion of student loans with no immediate hit to the Department of Education’s massive portfolio. Yet it didn’t do it. Now, perhaps Joe Biden will.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board is giving state and local governments extra time to implement its new leases standard because of the coronavirus pandemic, and they will need it.