Unlike most private-sector organizations, governmental entities must be responsive to a number of different groups and organizations—including elected officials, other governmental entities, investors, creditors, and citizens—that monitor their activities. All forms of monitoring involve collecting and interpreting data, and this oversight function is often performed using information provided in governmental reports. Among the most important types of reports is the annual financial report, which presents the financial position, operating results, and cash flows for a particular accounting period. All governments, including school districts, develop their annual financial reports in accordance with principles established by standard-setting authorities to provide consistency and comparability for users.
For governments to achieve the objective of accountability, financial information must be both relevant and reliable for reasonably informed users. Financial reports must satisfy numerous and diverse needs or objectives, including short-term financial position and liquidity, budgetary and legal compliance, and issues having a longer-term focus such as capital budgeting and maintenance. Additionally, differences exist in the amount of detail that various users need.
Following more than a decade of research and analysis, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) concluded that to meet the varied needs of a wide range of users, governmental reports must provide information regarding the public entity as a whole in addition to the traditional fund financial statements. Accordingly, in June 1999, GASB introduced a new financial reporting model in its Statement 34, Basic Financial Statements—and Management's Discussion and Analysis—for State and Local Governments (GASB 1999). This new model integrated the traditional focus of governmental fund financial statements relating to fiscal accountability (and the modified accrual basis of accounting) with new forms of reporting (e.g., government-wide financial statements). The two levels of financial reporting are intended to
This chapter provides an overview of governmental accounting and financial reporting and the current approaches used in compiling financial reports. In particular, it includes the following elements:
It is important for governments to provide their constituencies with effective financial information presented in a consistent and clear format. Specifically, the information provided by governments should contribute to accountability in the following areas:
Consistency in financial reporting by governments is achieved through the use of accounting standards. GASB is the standard-setting authority of GAAP for state and local governments, including school districts. In cases where no GASB pronouncement is applicable, other authoritative sources of guidance exist. The following section presents a hierarchy of GAAP in descending order of authority. The hierarchy was established in Statement of Auditing Standards (SAS) 69 (AICPA 1992).