Going Concern Uncertainties and Severe Financial Stress Disclosure Task Force Formed
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board has formed a task force to assist with a project to address disclosure issues related to going concerns, uncertainties, and severe financial stress plan sponsors may be facing.
GASB Chair Joel Black recently announced the appointment of the task force's members, listed below by stakeholder group type:
Users:
- Lisa Washburn, Managing Director, Municipal Market Analytics, Inc.
- Shripad Joshi, Senior Director & Accounting Officer, Corporate and Government Ratings, S&P Global
- Stephen Spencer, Managing Director, Houlihan Lokey
- Sharon Edmundson, Director, North Carolina Department of State Treasurer
- Amanda Beck, Assistant Professor of Accounting, Georgia State University
- Mary Murphy, Senior Director, The Pew Charitable Trusts
- Angus Maciver, Legislative Auditor, Montana Legislative Audit Division.
Preparers
- Kristine Brock, Assistant City Administrator/Chief Financial Officer, City of Franklin, Tennessee
- Linda Short, Deputy Director of Finance, City of Fort Lauderdale, Florida
- Chad Greenwell, Associate Controller, University of Michigan
- Mark Merry, Assistant Director, Florida Department of Financial Services
- Kathy Ketchum, Manager, Accounting and Assistant Controller, Sacramento Municipal Utility District
- Elizabeth Hill, Deputy Comptroller, Nassau County, New York.
Auditors
- Jodi Dobson, Partner, Baker Tilly US, LLP
- Tim Lyons, Partner, Mauldin & Jenkins, LLP
- Chris Pembrook, Partner, Crawford & Associates, P.C.
- Robert Hinkle, Deputy Auditor of State, State of Ohio.
A GASB email indicates that chairman Black appoints task forces after consulting with other GASB members, the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council chairman, and staff. According to the email, in most cases, task force members have particular expertise or experience in the field of the research or project and are capable of articulating similar views. A consultant can identify implementation difficulties, evaluate the cost of proposed standards, or opine on their usefulness.
The Task Force's Job
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board puts task forces together on most major projects and certain research activities. For this project, task force members will give suggestions and feedback as the project progresses. Task force members' responsibilities include reviewing GASB staff papers for board meetings, keeping an eye on board deliberations, and commenting accordingly.
The Project
Going concern uncertainties were not explicitly developed for state and local governments and were not significantly modified for the government environment by GASB. Despite current guidance stating they must evaluate a government's ability to continue as a going concern, financial statement preparers often face challenges due to GASB pre-agenda research. According to background research provided on the project page, this results in a wide variety of practices.
The project will consider the following:
- Improvements to existing guidance for going concern considerations to address diversity in practice and clarify the circumstances under which disclosure is appropriate.
- Developing a definition of severe financial stress and criteria for identifying when governments should disclose their exposure to severe financial stress.
- What information about a government's exposure to severe financial stress is necessary to disclose.
The project is in its initial deliberations phase.
Learn more on the project page.
About the Author: Allen Jones is TEXPERS' director of communications and event marketing. He joined the Association in January 2017.