AGA's Latest Research Reports Just Published

AGA’s Thought Leadership Series continues with several new published reports:

Challenges in Performance Auditing: How a State Auditor with Intriguing New Performance Auditing Authority is Meeting Them

In November 2005 the citizens of Washington state voted to give their state auditor the most extensive authority in the country to conduct comprehensive, independent performance audits of state and local governments. This study documents the initial actions taken by the state auditor to implement the provisions and prepare to conduct performance audits.

PAR: The Report We Hate to Love

This project was undertaken to determine the usefulness of Performance and Accountability Reports (PARs) for their intended audiences, and how that usefulness can be improved.

Annual CFO Survey: Measures, Systems and Centers of Excellence

This year, CFOs were asked about progress toward meeting financial improvement goals, including the President’s Management Agenda and the Lines of Business initiative, which are both managed by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Most survey respondents support the financial management goals, but many are concerned about details of migrating agency- and department-level functions to shared services arrangements called Shared Service Centers. The report said, “Most of the improvement initiatives to date have focused on the infrastructure and basic processes of financial management. Many federal financial leaders want to get beyond this stage of development and focus on how financial management can better contribute to achieving agency missions.”