|
Training
Check calendar and register on-line.
Employment Opportunities
See openings or add an announcement.
VGFOA Certification Program
Course content & requirements.
Membership Directory
Contact someone, or update your information online.
VGFOA Board
Meet your Board, see committee assignments, and make contact.
Do you have a story to share Submit an article to the Editor for a future newsletter.
VGFOA’s Strategic Plan!
Directions for the future.
Renew Membership
Dues overdue Renew your membership today.
VGFOA Announcements&News
See the latest updates and news.
National GFOA on the Web
Visit now.
NEWSLETTER COMMITTEE
Tanya Burrell– Chair
Joel Comer
Karen Cummings
Nancy Tracy
|
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
The past several months have been very busy for the Executive Board. We were faced with the challenge and opportunity of selecting a new administrator for VGFOA. I am pleased to announce effective February 1, 2011, VML/VACo Finance will become the program administrator for the VGFOA under a 5-year contract. This exciting new arrangement will provide many enhancements to our current services. The VML/VACo Finance staff knows and understands our membership very well and will provide dedicated resources to handle our administrative needs including conferences, newsletters, website, and registration. In addition, for the first time VGFOA will have office space available in Richmond which will be convenient for our members who attend General Assembly sessions. Please join me in welcoming Bob Lauterberg, Sheila Minor, Steve Mulroy, and Denise Sandlin into our VGFOA community. I know they welcome your thoughts and comments and look forward to hearing from you. I have been very impressed with their energy and eagerness to, not only meet all the requirements of the contract, but to offer suggestions for improvements. You will find more details related to the transition in this newsletter.
You may be wondering why we selected a new administrator. I will share some of the journey with you. In October, Dr. Bruce Chase expressed interest in returning his focus to the educational classes offered through VGFOA’s Certificate Program and away from the administration services he has provided to VGFOA as Executive Secretary for many years. This change will allow Bruce and GNAC to focus exclusively on continuing to provide the exceptional classes to our membership. He and Greg Akers, VGFOA Education Certificate Chair, are working to develop new classes including online offerings.
Bruce, along with his staff at Radford's GNAC, has done an outstanding job as program administrator for the VGFOA for many years. As many of you know, much of VGFOA’s recent success in terms of outstanding classes, successful conferences, and financial stability has been due in part to Bruce’s professional dedication to VGFOA. He has been a constant source of historic information and has assisted many Executive Board members and officers as they passed through the ranks.
In response to GNAC’s request, Pat Weiler, President Elect, volunteered to chair the RFP and selection committee which included Karen Woodson, Barbara Dameron, and me. Pat and her team did a wonderful job pulling together a very detailed request for proposals to solicit a new program administrator, reviewing the proposals, and conducting comprehensive interviews. At the December Executive Board meeting, the Board approved VML/VACo as our new administrator. Thanks go to Pat, Karen, and Barbara who exemplified great teamwork with a common goal of finding the best administrator for the organization.
I believe we have the best of both worlds - with Bruce and GNAC continuing to provide the exceptional classes that are the envy of other state GFOAs and with the added advantage of VML/VACo, our new administrator, and their dedicated staff to respond to VGFOA membership’s dynamic requirements.
I want to thank the hardworking Executive Board members for their tremendous efforts. They contributed many of the articles and updates provided in this edition and have been hard at work on upcoming conferences, supporting strong regional groups, strengthening vendor relations, enhancing our award and membership programs, and arranging for upcoming classes.
I wish you all a good budget season and hope to see you in Virginia Beach in June.
Respectfully submitted,
Vivian McGettigan
VGFOA President
VGFOA Spring Conference…VA Beach
June 8 – 10, 2011
Tired of the snowy, rainy, icy, cold weather Think warm, sunny, sand, ocean air and you have VA Beach and the VGFOA Spring Conference. The conference committee is hard at work in putting together a super program line up. To highlight some of the speakers:
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Peter Ronoayne. He is a senior faculty member at The Federal Executive Institute. Pete is a leading voice in the public sector on generational and demographic issues and their impact on leadership and organizations. Currently, he is working on a biography of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to be published in 2011. He co-authored Biography of an Ideal, a history of the U.S. civil service, and he co-edited The Trusted Leader: Building the Relationships that Make Government Work, a collection of essays focused on the imperative of values-based and collaborative leadership in the public sector.
Susan Gafney, GFOA’s Federal Liaison, will be a general session speaker. The mission of the Federal Liaison Center is to inform GFOA members about federal legislation, regulations, judicial actions, and policies that affect public finance functions and to represent the interest of GFOA in Washington, D.C. Some of the center’s activities include participating in many working groups with other state and local organizations on issues of importance to GFOA members and maintain close working relationships with many regulatory agencies including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB).
You don’t want to miss these speakers and more. Please plan to come to theVGFOA Spring Conference in VA Beach on June 8-10, 2011.
VGFOA Central Regional Training Event Scheduled for March 2011
The VGFOA Central Regional Organization is having a training event scheduled for Friday, March 18, 2011, from 8:30 a.m. – 4:15 p.m. at the Henrico County Training Center. Topics include sessions on Tax Exempt Bond Compliance, VRS Update, Government Savings Account Programs, Accounting and ARRA Update, Credit Card Payment Services, and Various Government Banking Topics. The event cost is $25 and includes continental breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks. Registration will be available through the VGFOA Regional Organization Calendar website at www.vgfoa.org If you have any questions regarding the training please contact Clarence Daniel at dan@co.henrico.va.us
VGFOA Hampton Roads Regional Training Event Scheduled for February 2011
The VGFOA Hampton Roads Regional Organization is having a training event scheduled for Thursday, February 10, 2011 from 7:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. at the Quality Inn Lake Wright. The topic is “Fraud Update.” The event cost is $10 for VGFOA members and $14 for nonmembers and includes a buffet breakfast. Registration will be available through the VGFOA Regional Organization Calendar website at www.vgfoa.org Please contact Rhonda Sommer at rsommer@cityofchesapeake.net if you have any questions regarding the training.
VGFOA Certificate Program Course Scholarships
Is attaining the VGFOA certificate one of your New Year’s resolutions Or, are you now in the middle of the certificate program, with three or four courses under your belt, but your locality is still facing budget woes, and funds for employee travel and training are nonexistent
VGFOA’s Certificate Program Course scholarship may be just the answer. For several years, VGFOA has been offering, on a competitive basis, scholarships to attend one of the upcoming VGFOA certificate program courses. This year’s certificate course scholarship program offers five individual course scholarships, each valued at $225. The certificate course scholarships are good for up to one year after award and winners are free to choose any VGFOA certificate course offered during that time period. VGFOA membership is required to apply for the certificate course scholarships. Additional information concerning VGFOA’s certificate program course scholarship and the application form is available on VGFOA’s website at www.vgfog.org. The application deadline is April 15, 2011.
GFOA’s AGFI Scholarship
The VGFOA is offering one scholarship to a qualified individual to attend the GFOA’s Advanced Government Finance Institute which will be held July 24 to July 29, 2011 at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. The scholarship is for $2,240, and covers the $1,940 program fee (which includes tuition, housing, meals, classroom materials and sponsored activities) and $300 to help pay for airfare. All other costs must be covered by the attendee or their employer. Selection will be based on professional experience. Examples of types of professionals that attend the institute include Finance Directors, Assistant Finance Directors, Department Heads and Senior Managers. VGFOA membership is required to apply for the scholarship. Applications must be submitted by April 15, 2010. To apply, please submit a copy of the GFOA AGFI application (available at www.gfoa.org) by e-mail, fax or regular mail to:
Tammy Todd
City of Salem Finance Department
PO Box 869
Salem, VA 24153
ttodd@salemva.gov
fax: (540) 375-4057
Applications Being Accepted for
Edward T. Pettigrew College Student Scholarship
To honor the contributions made by Edward T. Pettigrew, VGFOA’s first president, the VGFOA is offering three governmental accounting/public administration awards to be given to students attending a Virginia university or college. Each selected student will receive a $1,000 award.
Students must be rising college juniors/seniors with a declared major of accounting or public administration, with the goal of going into the public sector OR graduate students in an MPA program. Full- or part-time students are eligible for these awards. Awards will be presented at the Spring VGFOA conference and at the students’ award banquets at their respective schools, whenever possible.
The following items must be submitted to be considered for this award:
● a completed Edward T. Pettigrew College Student Scholarship
application (available at www.vgfoa.org)
● a completed Faculty Recommendation (available at www.vgfoa.org)
● unofficial transcripts
Each of these items must be submitted by March 9, 2011 by email, fax, or regular mail to:
Barbara A. Dameron, C.P.A.
Director of Finance
City of Danville
PO Box 3300
Danville, Virginia 24543-3300
damerba@ci.danville.va.us
fax: 434-799-5102
Questionnaire Regarding IRS Government Entities Website – All Public Employers Are Encouraged to Respond
Federal, state, and local government (“public”) employers are subject to employment taxes (Social Security, Medicare, public pension systems, and fringe benefits) and regulations which are different from those for private sector employers. Ten years ago, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Tax Exempt and Government Entities (TE/GE) Division, created an Advisory Committee that was established to provide customer input on various tax matters affecting federal, state, and local governments, including matters pertaining to public institutions of higher education. As a subunit of the ACT, the Federal-State-Local Governments (FSLG) Committee has created a questionnaire to see if the current IRS/FSLG website (located at: http://www.irs.gov/govt/fslg/index.html ) contains the appropriate, needed information for federal, state, and local governments and also to determine what, if any, improvements to the website should be recommended to the IRS.
We encourage and welcome you to respond to the questionnaire which can be accessed via the NCSSSA website at: http://www.ncsssa.org/whatsnewcombo.html . Your responses, when aggregated with others, will provide our committee with feedback to give to the IRS/FSLG Office, so they can make appropriate and useful changes to their website. The responses to this questionnaire will be held completely confidential by the ACT Committee members and will be used solely for the purpose of identifying areas for improvement to the IRS/FSLG website. No individual identifying information will be shared with the IRS or anyone else.
The ACT will receive comments on this Questionnaire until March 1, 2011. To access the questionnaire, please go to: http://www.ncsssa.org/whatsnewcombo.html . Completion of the questionnaire itself should only take a few moments of your time.
If there are any questions, you may send an email to Maryann Motza, FSLG Website Project Leader: maryann.motza@state.co.us.
Thank you, in advance, for your assistance in refining and improving this valuable information source for federal, state and local governments.
Sincerely,
Maryann Motza
Paul Carlson
Patricia Phillips
IRS/Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Employment (TE/GE) (ACT)
Federal-State-Local Government (FSLG) Subcommittee Members (2010-2011)
|
|