the kansas city courier - kcaga-cgfm.org · year 2013-2014 9 the kansas city courier march 2014...
TRANSCRIPT
Chapter Executive Committee Positions
President’s Message
Hello Kansas City AGA Chapter! What a great training we had last month! I would like to thank the Tax Man-ager, Rachelle R. Styles, of J.E. Dunn for her excellent presentation of the “Recent Tax Changes for 2013”. Hopefully we all learned a thing or two about how to complete our taxes before the due date of April 15th.
Just a reminder that our Chapter Executive Committee (CEC) is in the process of recruiting members to join the Chapter leadership team for the upcoming year. We have many different positions available, and now is a perfect time to become more involved in our Chapter. If you are interested, or just want more information, please inquire to any of our current CEC members.
Remember…have fun! Be where you want to be. Engage in organizations aligned with your beliefs.
Best regards,
Barry J. Owens
Kansas City AGA, Chapter President
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
Training News 2
Awards and Scholar-
ship Opportunities 3
KC Chapter
Awards/
Membership 4
CGFM Examina-
tion Update 5
Off the Wire 6-7
Treasurer’s Report 8
Chapter Executive
Committee-Program
Year 2013-2014
9
The Kansas City Courier March 2014
Sponsored by Kansas City Chapter AGA
Don’t forget to visit us at:
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The Kansas City Courier
Training News
Training News
Meeting & Luncheon Information- The Kansas City Chapter of the AGA is proud to offer its monthly professional development luncheon at the Grand Street Cafe. Lunch for the March meeting will be a choice of a Grilled Chicken Wrap, Shrimp Roll Sliders, or Ricotta Goat Cheese Stuffed Cannelloni. Please join us and let Connie Smith know of your choice when making your reservation. Honored Speaker: Jodi Robinson, Director, CBIZ MHM, LLC
Mayer Hoffman McCann, P.C.
Time: Wednesday, March 12, 2014
11:30-1:00
Subject: Evidence and Support: What is Best?
(1 CPE Accounting)
Location: Grand Street Cafe (on the Country Club Plaza)
4740 Grand Ave, Kansas City, MO 64112
Cost: $20.00 Members
$25.00 Non-Members
Reservations: Please call Connie Smith 816-926-3646 or e-mail [email protected] before 4:00 PM Friday, March 7th.
CPEs Online
You can earn CPEs online through the AGA’s national website. Once you are on the home page, click on the Events & CPE tab and go to Earn CPE
Online. You will receive instructions on how to earn additional CPEs online by reading the quarterly journal of Government Financial Management and
taking a quiz on what you have read. There is a fee of $30 per quiz or you can buy a package of 4 quizzes for $109. Please take note, you only get one
chance on the quiz. If you fail, no CPEs will be awarded. For more detailed information, please go to the national website at www.agacgfm.org/.
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The Kansas City Courier
Awards and Scholarship Opportunities
Awards and Scholarships Opportunities
Request for Volunteers – Awards Committee
The Awards Chair is looking for volunteers to serve on the Scholarship & Awards Committee to assist in the selection of our KC AGA Scholarship
and Nominated Awards. Please email Pamela Yancey at [email protected] if you are interested in volunteering. Please do not
volunteer if you, or one of your family members, plan to apply for the scholarship. Please see the information below regarding the KC AGA Scholar-
ship Applications.
AGA is soliciting nominations for both scholarships and awards. Details are outlined below:
SCHOLARSHIPS
The Kansas City Chapter of the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) is pleased to offer two opportunities for $500 academic scholarships
for full-time or part-time study. The criteria for scholarship application is provided below:
Applicants must be an AGA member or family member (spouse, child or grandchild) and
Scholarship must be applied toward full-time or part-time undergraduate/graduate study in a financial management academic disci-
pline. This includes disciplines such as accounting, auditing, budgeting, economics, finance, electronic data processing (IT), infor-
mation resources management, and public administration.
Academic scholarships will be awarded based on the candidate’s potential for making a meaningful contribution to public financial
management.
Academic achievement prior to application is an indication of potential for successful study, but is not the only criteria that will be
considered in awarding these scholarships.
Candidate must have a minimum grade point average of 2.5 on a 4.0 scale.
All Academic Scholarship candidates must include a reference letter from an AGA member and from another professional such as a
professor, guidance counselor, employer, etc. written on professional letterhead and sent electronically. All reference letters and letters
of recommendation should be submitted electronically to the address in the cover letter for this application along with the application
and essays.
Scholarship candidates must submit an electronic Microsoft Word document of their essay and application to the address in the cover
letter for this application. The essay cannot be more than two double-spaced pages. Make sure to have your full name on the docu-
ment. The essay should address the following topic: “Why I Want a Career in Financial Management.”
Deadline for submission is March 28th, 2014.
If interested, please send an email to [email protected] to request a scholarship packet.
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The Kansas City Courier
KC Chapter Awards/Membership
KC Chapter Awards
It is time to start considering the recognition given to our Chapter members for service to the KC AGA and for displaying leadership and contribu-
tions to our AGA community. The KC Chapter has two awards that are determined through nominations by members or non-members. They are:
Special Achievement Award--Recognizes AGA members for notable contributions toward improving financial management dur-
ing the year. This award applies to accomplishments in their workplace or other professional venues.
Clifford M. Buck Chapter Service Award—recognizes the member who has provided the greatest contribution or service to the
Chapter over an extended period of time. Eligible chapter members should be nominated for this award by other members.
If you are interested in nominating a Chapter member for the above contributions, please send an email to [email protected] to
request a scholarship packet. The deadline for submission of completed nomination packages is March 28th, 2014.
Thank you!
Membership The Kansas City AGA Chapter is proud to announce scholarship opportunities for memberships. Are you a new retiree? We have a possible scholarship
for you to join the AGA all membership fees paid. Are you a student? Grab a friend because we have two student memberships to the AGA being of-
fered. Do you know a lot of students? Start recruiting because the person that recruits the most students for membership will also be granted a scholar-
ship for their membership dues. Please contact Alisha Dolt at [email protected] for more information. Otherwise, budget for the following.
AGA Member Types
Full Government Member $90/year This class of membership requires three or more years of government experience, involving the professional performance of financial management activities in an operational, administrative and/or supervisory capacity. This class is also available to individuals with similar experience outside the government who are engaged in educational activities having the same objectives as the Association, or who have made a contribution to the im-provement of government financial management.
Private Sector Member $150/year This class of membership is available to individuals working for commercial activities/ventures that are actively engaged in and support AGA¹s purpose and objectives.
Early Career Member $45/year This class of membership is for those who work in private or public sector jobs with less than three years of professional experience.
Student Member $30/year This class of membership is available to college/university students.
Retired $30/year This class of membership is available to those members who have retired. Call the AGA Customer Satisfaction Center at 800.AGA.7211 to find out more about our retired membership category.
Please contact Alisha Dolt at [email protected] with any questions about membership.
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CGFM Examination Update
CGFM Examinations Update To ensure the CGFM Examinations’ content continues to reflect the current government financial management field, AGA periodically conducts a Job Analysis Study of the role of government financial manager. The latest Job Analysis Study was conducted in 2013 and, as a result, the CGFM Examinations will be updated in 2014. The revised examinations content outlines can be found here. The schedule of the update is as follows:
1. Current CGFM Examinations using the existing content outlines will be administered until March 31, 2014. 2. Starting on April 1, the CGFM Examinations will follow the updated content outlines. 3. From April 1 to May 31, CGFM Examinations will be in the initial (beta) period: the updated examinations will be administered in Pear-
son VUE testing centers; however, the scores will not be reported to the candidates taking these examinations until the week of June 30. CGFM Examinations taken during this beta period will be offered at a discounted rate of $89 per exam (to get the discount, enter “2014 BETA” promo code when scheduling your appointment with Pearson VUE). In addition, individuals taking the CGFM Examinations during this beta period will receive FREE access to the 2014 version of corresponding CGFM study guide(s) until May 31.
4. There will be no CGFM Examinations administered in June 2014. 5. Starting on July 1, 2014, the updated CGFM Examinations will resume (with immediate score reporting).
If you are planning on taking the exams after April 1, AGA is in the process of revising the three CGFM study guides to reflect the updated examina-tions content outlines. The updated study guides will be available at the end of February/early March 2014. AGA is also offering two Intensive Re-view Courses that will cover the updated examinations content outlines on March 31–April 1 in Washington, DC and April 2–3 in Oklahoma City. Visit this link for more information. Please review the Frequently Asked Questions below about the examinations update. AGA will also host an informational webinar on February 20 at 2 p.m. ET to go over the exam update schedule and answer questions. If you have any additional questions, contact Katya Silver in the Office of Professional Certification at 800.AGA.7211, ext. 305. Exam Update FAQs Q: What is different about the CGFM Examinations administered in April and May 2014? A: CGFM Examinations administered in April and May 2014 (beta period) are the same examinations (same content, number of questions and timeframe) as the regular examinations, but do not provide an immediate score (scores will be available during the week of June 30). CGFM Examina-tions taken during this beta period will be offered at a discounted rate of $89 per exam (to get the discount, enter “2014 BETA” promo code when scheduling your appointment with Pearson VUE). In addition, individuals taking the CGFM Examinations during this beta period will receive FREE access to the 2014 version of corresponding CGFM study guide(s) until May 31. Q: If I pass a CGFM Examination in April or May 2014, will it count towards my CGFM? A: Yes. Q: I still have the three CGFM Examinations to pass. Can I take one CGFM Examination in March, one in April and one in July? A: Yes, and, if passed, all will count towards the CGFM. The one taken in March will follow the existing content outline and the ones in April and July will follow the updated content outlines. Q: If I don’t pass an exam in April or May, will it have the same waiting period as the regular exams? A: Yes (however, the scores will not be known until the week of June 30). Q: If I take exams in April, can I find out my score before June? A: No. In order to have high-quality CGFM Examinations, we need to collect statistics and analyze exams given during the initial (beta) testing period of April and May before we can report scores to the candidates. Those exam scores will be available during the week of June 30. Q: What if my eligibility expires while I am waiting for my scores from April and May exams? A: If you take and don’t pass the CGFM Examinations during the initial (beta) period and your eligibility expires in the April through July timeframe, contact AGA’s Office of Professional Certification for an extension to complete your exams. Q: What areas are new on the examinations? A: A lot of objectives on the CGFM Examinations content outlines were revised, some were re-ordered and some were added, so we recommend reviewing the entire updated content outlines, rather than selected areas. That said, we would like to point out that CGFM Examination 1 has com-pletely new content for its Section VII. Q: Can I use my existing study guides to prepare for the CGFM Examinations? A: While a lot of objectives on the examination content outlines remained the same, there were a number of revised objectives. If you are planning to utilize the CGFM Study Guides for preparation, we recommend ordering the 2014 editions of the study guides that will be available at the end of February/early March. In addition, individuals taking the CGFM Examinations during the beta period (April and May 2014) will receive FREE access to the 2014 version of corresponding CGFM study guide(s) until May 31.
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Off the Wire
Which Comes First, Resources or Results? By: Robert D. Behn
Which came first: the chicken or the egg? This age-old philosophical conundrum troubled even Aristotle. After all, the chicken could never have existed without the egg. Yet, the egg could never have existed without the chicken. Which came first, indeed?
Of course, this is not just a problem for biological species. It has a variety of modern equivalents. Which comes first: electric cars or electric-car charging stations?
How do you get people to build and buy electric cars when there are no places to recharge them? How do you get people to build charging stations for electric cars when there are no electric cars that need to be charged?
Today’s public executives face their own chicken-and-egg dilemma. Which comes first: the resources or the results? After all, producing better results requires resources. Yet, who will provide resources to an agency that cannot demonstrate the ability to produce better results?
Private sector executives solve this problem by raising capital. A fledgling firm -- with no sales, indeed, with nothing yet to sell -- can attract investment from venture capitalists on the promise of future sales and thus future profits. Venture capitalists are, of course, careful when they select a firm in which to invest. Moreover, they are not passive investors, but fully engaged. Drawing on their experience helping other firms bring their products to market, these investors help the firms in which they invest. They offer advice about everything from product develop-ment to marketing. Then, if they are satisfied with a firm’s progress, these investors will provide another infusion of capital. If not, they will cut their losses.
No venture capital firm ever has a perfect record. None ever expects to have a perfect record. They accept that a majority of their investments will fail. But they aren’t looking just for winners. They are looking for big winners -- a few winners whose profits are so big that they more than compensate for the firm’s many losses. In the beginning, however, it isn’t obvious which investments will be losers, which will be winners, and which will be the big winners. Producing a few big winners takes lots of work and years of patience.
Unfortunately, few public agencies have a funding source that is speculative, helpful, and patient. Today, some are able to attract such funding from social impact bonds. The rest, however, can’t go to the budget office or the legislature’s finance committee with a brilliant idea and expect to earn anything more than a polite thank you. (All sorts of people are, however, happy to offer public executives lots of advice.)
As a result, many (most?) public agencies are -- compared with their public purposes -- quite undercapitalized. As Joseph Bower of the Harvard Business School once observed: Strategy in business is “the application of massive resources to limited objectives.” In contrast, strategy in gov-ernment is “the application of limited resources to massive objectives.”
How might purpose-driven public executives obtain the capital necessary to make significant improvements in performance? They can’t im-prove performance without resources. Yet, they can’t generate resources without improving performance. How can they resolve their chicken-or-egg dilemma?
.
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Off the Wire-Continued
The answer is slowly. They have to ratchet up performance by exploiting their available resources. Only after they have improved results by a significant notch, can they seek more resources
After all, the electric car dilemma will be resolved only slowly. An increase in the number of electric cars induces an increase in the number of charging stations. Meanwhile, an increase in the number of charging stations induces an increase in the production and sales of electric cars. The same is true for the performance in government. A small increase in results can earn an increase in resources. Meanwhile, a small increase in resources can be used to produce an increase in results.
The initial increase in results need not be small. Indeed, what is “small” and what is “big?” Anyone who seeks to evaluate a public agency’s performance does so by making a comparison. But with what? Often, this comparison is with expectations. The evaluator compares the results that the agency actually produced with the results that the evaluator expected it would, could, or might produce. Thus, when public executives seek to resolve their chicken-or-egg dilemma, they may find it beneficial to help their evaluators compare their meager expectations with the results the agency did indeed produce.
Which comes first: the resources or the results? Public executives can actually solve this dilemma. To do so, however, they will have to be pa-tient as they ratchet up performance one step at a time.
Robert D. Behn, a lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, chairs the executive education program “Driving Gov-ernment Performance: Leadership Strategies that Produce Results.” His book The PerformanceStat Potential will be published by Brookings in 2014.
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Treasurer's Report
AGA Kansas City Chapter
Statement of Receipts and Disbursements
For Month Ending December 31, 2013
Bank Account Balance December 31, 2013:
Freedom Checking $ 8,872.75
Business Savings 7,524.20
Total Bank Balance $ 16,396.95
Beginning Book Balance:
Book Balance November 30, 2013 $ 20,781.49
Receipts:
Interest Income:
Savings 0.76
Total Interest $ 0.76
Other Receipts:
December Luncheon (Café Trio) - CC Pmts 245.00
CEC member pmt for CEC dinner 78.00
Total Other Receipts $ 323.00
Total Receipts $ 323.76
Disbursements:
Fall Seminar - Johnson County Community College 3,335.09
December Luncheon - Café Trio 828.80
January Luncheon Deposit - Jack Stack BBQ 250.00
Credit Card fees - November 80.43
Fall Seminar Supplies 63.98
Managed Web Business, LLC (Chapter Website) - Novem-ber (reissue) 50.00
Managed Web Business, LLC (Chapter Website) - Decem-ber 50.00
Community Service - Spina Bifida of Kansas City 50.00
Total Disbursements $ 4,708.30
Net fund from Transactions/(Loss) for period $ (4,384.54)
Ending Book Balance
December 31, 2013 $ 16,396.95
Credit Card fees - December (37.47)
December Luncheon deposit -
Café Trio 610.00
Adjusted Balance $ 16,969.48
The Kansas City Courier Page 7
Chapter Executive Committee—Program Year 2013–2014
Position Name Work Phone Email Address
President Barry Owens 816 823 1593 [email protected]
President – Elect Leeanna Wilder 913-551-7161 [email protected]
Past President Michael Melloy 816-823-2701 [email protected]
Secretary Connie Walton 816-823-1272 [email protected]
Treasurer Sean Rathman 816-823-2798 [email protected]
Awards Pamela Yancey,
CGFM 816-926-6265 [email protected]
By-Laws / Procedures / Historian / Property Mark Brandt 816-823-2938 [email protected]
CGFM Jacob Nicholls 913-551-7393 [email protected]
Chapter Recognition Leeanna Wilder 913-551-7161 [email protected]
Accountability Outreach Harry E. Heflin 816– 665-3850 [email protected]
Communications – Newsletter Howard Petrie 816-513-1172 [email protected]
Community Service Kimberlynn Out-
man 816-926-2133 [email protected]
Early Career
Maria Ellis
Melody Bingham
816-926-7533
816-926-2467
Professional Development-Seminar Coordina-
tor
Leeanna Wilder
Casey Thomas
913-551-7161
816-926-2355
Liaison for other Professional Organizations Oscar Williams 816-997-6939 [email protected]
Membership Alisha Dolt 816-823-3892 [email protected]
Program and Technical Meeting Co-Chairs
Laura Logan 816-823-4530 [email protected]
Connie Smith 816-926-3646 [email protected]
Publicity/Website Chuck Koelsch 816-823-1196 [email protected]
Website
Chuck Koelsch
Steven E. Bell
816-823-1196
913-649-7461