Continous Problem - City of Everlasting Sunshine Essay

This memo is to serve as description of how the economy can impact projections related to revenues and expenditures in regards to the city budget. Several examples will be provided including explanations on why these items can have a tumultuous effect on the city budget. These examples include the effect property taxes and income taxes had on our fiscal stability as well as how even with proper accounting and financial reporting, the budget still fell victim to the economy.

The budget for the city of San Clemente has received the Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards from the Government Finance Officers Association for the past 17 years. Not surprisingly, considering those honors, the city's budget is organized in a manner largely consistent with the guidelines we have learned in this course.

The financial health and welfare of Thurston County is dependent upon establishing and maintaining sound budgetary principles and strategies for implementation. These financial principles will govern the development and administration of budgets for all county offices and departments. The County is to prepare fiscal and capital budgets that are to be balanced to be able to forecasted, which are to be consistent with approved strategic goals and capital improvement goals. Each county office and department will periodically seek to use citizen feedback in the development of the internal strategic plans to develop the high priorities for Thurston County government. For each department, resources are made available that will remain aligned with the strategic planning and priorities developed with the public input. Thurston County will create and maintain a reserve for the general fund that is equal to one month of the budget annual expenditures. The reserve will serve the purpose of the financial stabilization account to safeguard against possible revenue shortages

This research paper will detail the modified accrual revenue recognition in State and Local Government (SLG) accounting. There will also be discussions on the guidance of governmental fund expenditure recognition, and how it is used in state and local governments. Certainly, there are differences between the fund and the government-wide financial statements, but there are some similarities. Within the paper, it will include the purpose as well as the content of the financial statements. While explaining the government-wide financial statements, the preparation using derived information in the conversion worksheets, will be presented. Lastly, in this research paper, I will explain the elements of a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).

Folk, M., J., Garrsion, H., R., & Noreen, W., E., (2002). Introduction to Managerial Accounting. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

The general fund type consists of general revenue and general services. The special revenue fund type consisted of higher education improvement, cultural facilities building, and Clean Ohio Conservation Program. Next, the capital projects fund type consisted of: mental health facilities improvement, parks and recreation improvement, administrative building, and juvenile correctional building. The enterprise fund type consisted of: liquor control, state lottery, and workers’ compensation. Finally, the agency fund type consisted of: agency, accrued leave liability, and volunteer fire fighters’ dependents. The totals for each of the fund types are: general government ($1,015,491 for adjusted appropriations (aa) $875,7998 for total committed appropriations (tca), $139,693 for uncommitted appropriations (ua), and $888,605 for budgetary expenditures (be); total community and economic development fund: $2,042,882 for adjusted (aa), $1,374,832 for total committed, $668,050 for uncommitted, and $1,250,961 for expenditures; total local government support and tax relief fund: $4,110,991 for adjusted, $3,943,201 for total committed, $167,790 for uncommitted, and $3,943,201 for expenditures; capital outlay fund: $1,133,362 for adjusted, $446,471 for total committed, $686,891 for uncommitted,

The standard costs and variances for direct materials, direct labor, and factory overhead for the month of May are as follows:

At the end of each quarter, the system must produce a quarterly profit-and-loss report at the headquarters location that shows a list of incomes and expenses for each separate activity. As this report relating to finance, accounting department must be responsible for checking the report printed from the system and rechecking again that if the report is accurate with financial statement.

During this time frame only administrative funds from STOP 14 were used; the award was made during the reporting period. Dues for the Association of VAWA Administrators (AVA) were paid, there were no association fees and no training costs were incurred. The Maine Department of Public Safety paid for the subgrantee monitoring function. The funds were used to pay 50% of the office space occupied, 50% of the technology costs, 50% of the telephone costs, and postage incurred by the STOP program by the Senior Planner.

The Office of Financial Management provides vital information, fiscal services and policy support that the Governor, Legislature and state agencies need to serve the people of Washington State (Investopedia, 2010). Included in this briefing, a comparison of the governmental and for-profit financial accounting will be discussed, an understanding of the government reporting and reporting entity, and an overview of the Management Discussion & Analysis report for the state of Washington.

Understanding the sources (incomes) and uses (expenses) of funds, and the budget deficit/surplus that results, are core accounting measures to consider in short and long term personal financial planning. Also, grasping key concepts like how your salary/wages are earned and segmented/taxed is important in determining your net incomes. How to approach deficits and surpluses and their associated action plans come from sound accounting understanding. Accounting develops controls on how to deal with budget deficits like increasing income, reducing expenses and borrowing. Understanding how sunk costs and opportunity costs factor into alternative choices and borrowing come to us from sound accounting knowledge and play a role in personal planning. Lastly, through various standard reporting approaches, we, though accounting, can develop the ability to look at current and future personal finance decisions and health via income statements, balance sheets, ratios and other common size book keeping measures.

Under this task I will make necessary adjustments to the financial statements per the events given and also I will write a brief report assessing the impact of each adjustment on profit or loss, assets and liabilities. Additional information for adjusting entries as follows: a) There was $200 of supplies on hand at the end of accounting period. b) The one year lease on the office space was effective beginning on October 1, 2014. c) There was $1,200 of accrued salaries at the end of 2014. Adjusting entries of the year end of 2014 a) Dr. Salaries expenses $1,200 Cr.

The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) budget criteria framework covers 27 budgeting categories and was launched in 1984 to encourage the preparation of high quality budgets (Bland, 211). The following memo evaluates the budget of the City of Lake Oswego using GFOA’s Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Criteria, and also compares it to the budget of the City of Detroit.

Addition to the Governmental Funds or General Fund Vance County has one type Proprietary Funds - Enterprise Funds which are used to report the same functions presented as business-type activities in the government-wide financial statements. The County uses enterprise funds to account for its water activity and for its solid waste management operations (Department, June 30, 2015). The County’s proprietary funds provide the same type of information found in the government-wide statements but in more detail. Total net position of the Solid Waste Fund at the end of the fiscal year was $751,736, and for the Water Fund equaled $1,662,088. The change in net position before prior period adjustments for the Solid Waste Fund was $20,513 while the change in net position before prior period adjustments for the Water Fund was $1,610,863 (Department, June 30, 2015). Granville County has two types of Proprietary Funds Enterprise Fund which is very similar to Vance County except in Granville County their unrestricted net position of the Solid Waste Fund equaled $(7,658,465) (Department, June 30, 2015). The total net position for all proprietary funds is $(1,948,415). The total change in net position for the proprietary funds was a decrease of $103,579 (Department, June 30, 2015). This change in net position primarily results from decreased non-current liabilities for post closure care costs resulting from legislative changes and increased personnel costs.

An important function of the accounting field is to provide external users of financial statements with assurance that the financial information being presented is both reliable and accurate. This basic function of accounting is so important that there is an entire field of experts, called auditors, dedicated to assuring its proper performance. Throughout history there have been many instances in which the basic equilibrium between an institution and current/potential investor has been threatened due to a lack of accountability and trust between the two parties. This issue has been the catalyst for many discussions regarding the proper procedures a firm should follow in order to provide