In the next two years, public entities throughout the country will implement GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board) Statement #34. This new standard will require changes in the way state and local governments present their financial statement and capitalize and depreciate assets. It's aimed at helping governmental entities present a more complete and accurate representation of their operations. However, Illinois public libraries and state and local governments will need to understand and implement a variety of procedures and practices. Accordingly, the Illinois Library Systems, through an Library Service and Technology Grant from Illinois State Library, has created a GASB Statement #34 Work Group comprised of staff from library systems and public libraries. This page is designed to provide links to information to assist in implementing the new standard.

Organizations:

AGA [Association of Government Accountants] - Advancing Government Accountability http://www.agacgfm.org/
Offers electronic publications, an e-mail newsletter, and professional conferences

AICPA http://aicpa.org/index.htm
Includes online articles from its key accounting journals, links to accounting and auditing standards, and much more.

GASB: Governmental Accounting Standards Board http://accounting.rutgers.edu/raw/gasb/
A primary source that includes information on the standard itself, electronic discussions, and case studies of early implementers.

Government Finance Officers Association http://www.gfoa.org/
Of particular interest is the GASB #34 Forum and the Recommended Practices section.

Databases and Indexes

FirstSearch http://www.ref.oclc.org/
Start HERE to look for magazine and journal articles. This collection of databases of periodical articles is free to Illinois citizens (if you don't know the password and authorization for access, check with your local library). Select the database ABI Inform, which includes full text articles from hundreds of business and accounting magazines and journals, and then search your topic. Repeat your search in the database Periodical Abstracts, which includes full text articles from magazines on governing and general interest magazines . New articles are added to databases all the time, so you'll want to repeat your searches periodically. A second authorization and password number should give you access to the database, Library Literature.

Accountants' Home Page http://www.computercpa.com/
An index of accounting resources and software.

GASB Statement No. 34 http://www.mrsc.org/finance/GASB.htm
A nice collection of resources gathered by the Municipal Research & Services Center in the state of Washington. Includes GASB documents, articles about implementation, related sites, and publications.

National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers Implementation Database http://www.sso.org/nasact/GASB%2034/icgasb.htm
"a clearing house for questions, problems, issues, proposed solutions and comments that arise as state and local governments begin the work of implementing Statement No. 34 of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board." You can submit questions, examine other people's questions, answers and proposed solutions.

Rutgers Accounting Web http://accounting.rutgers.edu/
Includes a database of accounting literature; free registration required.

Discussion Groups, Listservs, etc.

GASB 34 Forum at GFOA http://www.gfoa.org/

Library-Oriented Lists & Electronic Serials http://www.wrlc.org/liblists/

Local Government Discussion Groups http://www.mrsc.org/library/listserv.htm

PUBPOL-L Archive: New: Accounting-Discuss - government accounting http://www.hhh.umn.edu/pubpol/pubpol-l/199511/0123.html

Search Engines

Google http://google.com/
This search engine tends to give quality search results; it also allows you to search news groups. If you run the search GASB 34 through it, it retrieves web sites for many state and local agencies' implementation plans. Similarly, a search for CAFR yields many agencies' Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports. Note that when you find a particularly useful document, you can click on the "Similar pages" link under the Google entry and it will find comparable web resources.

Northern Light http://northernlight.com/
Searches not only web sites but a database of articles from over 7,500 magazines and journals. Abstracts of the articles are free; the articles may be purchased (or obtained through your local library).

SearchGov http://searchgov.com/
Searches just through federal, state and local government web sites.

Software

There are many software packages available for depreciation of fixed assets and such. Probably the best way to tell if any of them are good solutions is to check out discussions in news groups and list servs, and use FirstSearch or Northern Light to look for reviews in accounting and government publications .

Other Resources:

Hennen, Thomas J. "Do You Know the Real Value of Your Library?" Library Journal, June 15, 2001

Cote, Jennifer J. and Herron, Terri L. "A primer for planning for GASB 34 implementation." Government Accountants Journal, Spring2000, Vol.

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This guide provided by Marylaine Block, October, 2001