Cash

“Prioritizing” Federal Payments?

October 16, 2013 Cash

During the depth of the recent Great Recession, senior Budget and Finance staff would gather in my office once a week to decide which vendors our county would pay that week and which would not. We knew our cash position and which checks had been printed and held. While we had some idea of expected […]

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Keeping Watch for Local Government Fiscal Stress

December 2, 2012 Accounting

New York’s Comptroller, Tom DiNapoli has issued a draft proposal for identifying local governments at risk of fiscal stress. An earlier report touches on local fiscal distress. And here, former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky discusses the earlier Comptroller’s report. It’s a good idea, and given the local governments that have already gotten themselves in trouble the […]

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Friday Afternoon Before a Holiday

May 25, 2012 Cash

Always release bad news late Friday before a holiday weekend. Right? Just a few minutes after posting about New York counties, including Albany, needing to repay the Federal government for excess payments received for their nursing homes, Albany County finally sent an update of their cash position. First look? Not as bad as it might […]

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It’s Now Been Four Months Since Albany County, NY Knew (or Revealed) How Much Cash it Has

May 21, 2012 Cash

Following up on last month’s post on Albany County’s cash, we renewed our FOIL request. It’s now been four months and there’s still no response. The explanation given earlier was that the County doesn’t have the data because they’re in the midst of changing banks. I’ve tried that explanation on a number of public officials […]

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Happiness is a Positive Cash Flow. What’s the Cost of Ignorance?

April 23, 2012 Cash

Unhappiness is a negative cash flow. Even worse is not knowing what your cash position is. For the past year, I’ve been submitting Freedom of Information (FOIL) requests to Albany County, getting their cash position each week. I’ve been using the data to prototype some displays of public data. It’s not cash flow, but rather […]

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Follow up on Cash Dashboard

February 23, 2012 Cash

Couple of tweaks I’ll be adding to the Cash Dashboard when I get a chance: To track and project cash from a more “organic” perspective, I’ll do a calculated field and display it excluding the borrowed cash from the Tax Anticipation Note (TAN). Though, I haven’t decided on the best means of projection, I’ll some […]

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Which Might be the Better Cash Dashboard?

February 23, 2012 Cash

My on-again, off-again posting is mostly the result of some prototyping and developing analytical tools and visualizations I’m doing with public data. Some are broader, more-policy focused. Others are more nitty-gritty operational. Here are two PDFs of a dashboard I’m working on for that most nitty-gritty of subjects, cash. Here’s an earlier post on its […]

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Dancing Along the Edge – In the Dark

February 9, 2012 Accounting

Dance too close to the edge … Well you know what happens. When things are tight is when to be most careful, but wanting to avoid public acknowledgement of trouble, some public officials get closer to the edge and then topple over. It’s even worse, when public officials avoid the bad news and operate in […]

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GASB Proposal to Require State & Local Governments to do Five Year Cash Flow Projections

December 19, 2011 Cash

Thanks to Lisa Henty, from the Orange County, NC Budget Office, for reminding us that the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) is seeking public comment on a Preliminary Views proposing that state and local governments prepare financial projections to better present their economic conditions. From the December 6, 2011, GASB press release: The GASB is […]

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Albany County Budget Vetoes Would Increase (Not Decrease) Property Taxes

December 13, 2011 Budget

Albany County Executive Michael Breslin, with just a couple weeks to go before his 16 year tenure ends, has issued a series of unusual budget vetoes. These may be his most significant budget vetoes ever and they certainly are within the past half-dozen years, but there’s a twist. They would lead to increased property taxes […]

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