This discussion provides the definition, background, types, and categories of the business entity’s human capital workforce. Investors, business regulators and other stakeholders believe human capital has value that should be measured and disclosed on the entity’s financial statements. Various means to determine human capital value are identified and discussed. together with available disclosure guidelines. Support for reporting human capital values on the entity’s financial statement is presented together with information about why human capital should not be reported. Investors, stakeholders, and other financial statement users’ perspective regarding the availability of human capital value information are presented with the reporting framework.

Sustainability reporting continues to grow in popularity but the lack of standardization in its reporting guidance is a challenge. This archival analysis examines the various formats available for reporting organizational sustainability, highlighting both commonalities and differences. Although no U.S. guidance has been successfully adopted, this does not deter companies from using whatever format meets their organizational reporting needs. The genesis of various sustainability nonfinancial reporting presentations is provided with a discussion of their format and content. Reporting goals, disclosure guidance and auditor review proposals are presented together with the status of U S sustainability reporting guidelines and pending accounting rules for environmental credits.

This discussion explores the hybrid combination of fair value and historical accounting measures used to present an entity’s statement of financial position, including assets, liabilities, and owners’ equity. Generally accepted accounting principles establish and guide valuation determinations that explain the valuation differences. The history of fair value guidance and recognition provides a foundation for presenting the advantages and disadvantages of financial measurement methods. Financial reporting valuation has evolved over time and is a copulation of both fair and historical value methodologies to determine the reported value. Future research is suggested to evaluate and resolve the outstanding reporting differences, concerns and issues.

The current expected credit loss (CECL) accounting guidance represents a forward-looking methodology for determining credit loss provisions by private colleges and universities’ lending activities beginning with fiscal year 2023-2024. The discussion presents information regarding the types and amounts of lending activities private colleges and universities engage in and the rationale of their lending programs. Provisions of the accounting guidance together implementation decisions, processes, and disclosures are part of the review. The study concludes with the accounting guidance’s impact on higher education fiscal decision making, financial reporting, and the ramifications of the guidance to provide useful information to both higher education management and financial statement users.

This study investigates corporate financial restatements in the United States from the pre-SOXs period (1995) to the pandemic period (2020) and finds issues of interest to policy makers, auditors, and corporate management. In the early years of the study, fewer than 50 restatements are of record. The 2005 year began a period of increasing filings due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act with the annual restatements reaching almost 2,000 that slowly declines to only several hundred in 2020. A major portion of the restatements result from interpretation and application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) accounting rules by publicly owned firms engaged in mechanical, transportation, finance, and service activities. Although the number of restatements decline, the justification for the restatements remain the result of inappropriate recognition or incorrect interpretation of new accounting guidance. Fraud and clerical issues continue to be an insignificant cause for a restatement.

•The medical profession can help accounting become a learned profession.•Resources from medical educators can be adapted by accounting educators.•Introduction of AMEE Guides in problem-based (PBL) and team-based learning (TBL).•Introduction of AMEE Guides in peer assisted learning (PAL) and reflection.•Medical resources for faculty responsibilities in teaching, research, and service.

This study explores the relationship between the firm’s CEO cash-based compensation and equity-based (non-cash) compensation and total CEO compensation to firm performance and the pay ratio with the median employee pay as required by the Dodd Frank Act (2010). The analysis uses information for 200 US publicly traded firms with revenues of $1 billion or more that filed 2018 proxies by April 30, 2019. The study finds a significant relationship of the CEO compensation to the median employee pay and to the pay ratio. The analysis supports past studies that find little, or no, relationship of the CEO compensation with firm financial performance measures including the ROE, ROA, and Tobin Q or the firm’s financial measures including total revenue, total assets or leverage. The study does find the Tobin’s Q that measures the firm’s value is negatively related to the CEO’s cash-based compensation. Given these findings, the firms in this study are paying their CEOs greater amounts without regard to the financial performance of the firm.

Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) requires state and local governments, public colleges and universities, and other governmental entities to issue basic financial statements, management’s discussion and analysis, and required supplementary information (GASB 34, 1999a, 6). The notes to the financial statements are an integral part of the basic financial statements and consist of disclosures about the governmental entity. The notes provide qualitative and quantitative information to help financial statement users better understand the numbers on the face of the financial statements. This study investigates Texas two-year college 2014 financial statements to determine the extent of note disclosures and compliance with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) requirements. The investigation also seeks to determine if a difference in compliance and disclosure exists between the financial statements audited by local, regional, or national accounting firms and finds that types of disclosure and auditor together with size, revenue, enrollment, tuition and state appropriate explain the number of required note disclosures, additional note disclosures and policy disclosures.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how trust, honesty and transparency impact the willingness and timeliness of communicating financial information between Government Finance Officers (GFOs) and members of the municipal boards they serve. Design/methodology/approach Survey data was collected from professionals who work with municipalities to ensure government resources are properly managed. Nonparametric local-linear regression was used to analyze the data. Findings Evidence suggests that trust in the board, GFO preference for honesty and greater transparency of the municipality influence the timeliness of communication. There is evidence that when the GFO and board members have a working relationship built on trust and the GFO has a preference for honesty, the GFO is more willing to share positive information with the board. In addition, there is evidence that with greater transparency and trust in the board, there is a reduction in the time of sharing positive information in situations where there is little discretion in disclosing and less willingness to share information. Research limitations/implications A principal limitation of this study is the small sample size. In addition, the study was conducted using only participants from the pool of members of the Government Finance Officers Association of Texas. As an exploratory study, the survey included a minimal number of questions to gather data from actual GFOs and included only six possible scenarios. The time constraint resulted in a reduced number of questions related to the models used. Other limitations include the potential of missing variables, factors or perceptions related to scenarios not presented in the survey instrument. Practical implications The findings suggest that with greater transparency, there is less time between the event and the GFO communication to the board providing the opportunity to improve the effectiveness of the decision-making process. Originality/value This study is the first to explore the effects of increased transparency on the level of communication between the GFO and the board.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) adopted Statement No. 77 requiring government disclosure of tax abatements in audited financial reports for years beginning after December 15, 2015. This paper reports survey findings provided by accounting and finance professionals (practitioners) regarding their tax abatement reporting perceptions. We then review early implementation of the abatement disclosure and find the disclosed information does not meet the practitioner’s expectations. Our findings fill a gap in state and local financial reports as it appears the new disclosure requirement does not fulfill the Board’s reporting transparency expectation goals.

ABSTRACT The objective of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's (GASB) Revenue and Expense Recognition Project is to develop a comprehensive model for classification, recognition, and measurement of revenues and expenses for governmental entities. A conceptual framework would provide a basis for evaluating revenue and expense recognition, provide guidance regarding exchange and exchange-like transactions that have not been specifically addressed, and improve the consistency of financial reporting for decision making and the assessment of accountability. The GASB issued an Invitation to Comment (ITC No. 4-6I) in January 2018 to seek feedback regarding the classification and recognition of revenue and expense transactions, excluding the issue of measurement as it will be addressed in a subsequent phase of the project. The GASB proposed two models developed by a task force at an earlier stage in the project: an exchange/nonexchange model and a performance obligation/no performance obligation model. This commentary provides the response submitted to the GASB from the Accounting and Auditing Standards Committee of the Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting Section of the American Accounting Association. In addition, directions for future research are discussed. Data Availability: Details regarding the GASB project can be found on its website at: https://www.gasb.org/jsp/GASB/Document_C/DocumentPage?cid=1176169978401&acceptedDisclaimer=true

ABSTRACT The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) has been actively engaged in the process of making improvements to the financial reporting model to provide more useful information to the users of the financial reports of governmental entities. The GASB proposed three recognition approaches to replace the current financial resources reporting model for governmental funds. The three approaches vary along a time dimension. The “near-term” model is the most similar to the current model with a specified reporting period of 60–90 days. A “short-term” model extends the transaction reporting to be the government's one-year operating cycle. Finally, a “long-term” model would report both current and noncurrent assets and liabilities for governmental funds. Data Availability: Details regarding the GASB project can be found on its website at: https://www.gasb.org/jsp/GASB/Document_C/GASBDocumentPage?cid=1176168729663&acceptedDisclaimer=true.

Prior audit delay studies concentrated on municipal government, counties and school districts. This study adds to the literature by examining the determinants of state governments’ timeliness of audit reports. Audit delay determinants found by previous municipal research are used to identify characteristics that may influence state audit delay. This study’s results suggest both agreement and contradiction of prior research audit delay determinants. Financial variables alone do not predict state government audit delay. However, a combination of financial and nonfinancial variables used in municipal audit delay studies do.

Recently insolvent municipalities have declared bankruptcy when they are unable to meet their bond debt or pay their outstanding liability obligations. This analysis looks at the fiscal health of Texas municipalities who have issued debt in the past two years to identify those suffering financial stress that would possibly result in the municipality seeking bankruptcy to resolve its fiscal issues. This investigation analyzes the State of Texas and local municipalities’ fiscal health using the revised Altman Z-Score with the government’s annual financial report data. Additional analysis relating the Z-score to entities’ bond rating is reported. These findings provide an effective mechanism for investors and interested citizens to evaluate and identify distressed governmental entities with a possible bankruptcy risk.