Atlanta & PTC Accounting systems

The mayor of Atlanta pretended last week to discover, just now, a $70,000,000 missing amount of money,
The Chief Financial Officer of Atlanta said, "not my yob, man." In a word, she said that each department does their own thing and that she had no way of knowing what was going on.
I suspect that $70 million is also certainly not all of it---just a teaser.

In some ways that is how Washington, DC now keeps books with their "off the books" accounting of the war. (and whatever else they can throw in the pile).

PTC seems to operate in a similar fashion with their "Authorities."
The accounting of separate entities is unavailable. Bond managing isn't far behind in its fuzziness!

Now we have personnel problems that may never become public due to private agreements.

Openness is the primary factor that makes our government continue to survive, barely.

I realize that complete openness in some military matters that don't violate treaties or our Constitution aren't always our immediate business, however, proper management in order to avoid such cover-ups is our expected norm for our leaders.

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Who knows what Logsdon is doing?
Submitted by John M on Mon, 02/04/2008 - 4:18pm.

I'm very suspicious of Harold Logsdon and his financial leadership. I agree with Mike King that these people need to be held accountable.

His buddies seem to always reap these taxpayer paydays.

The best we can hope for now is Logsdon was just lying about reducing taxes and there's no corruption involved.

"I'm NOT John Munford"

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AUDIT STANDARDS
Mike King's picture
Submitted by Mike King on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 11:22am.

Why not require munincipalities to set the standard for accounting to their constituency? Let's assume that they manage and report each and every dollar both as debits and credits much like what we are accountable for during an IRS audit.
We could have monthly public financial disclosures itemized down to the lowest level. All our appointed Comptrollers or Finance Directors would have to do is use a model of pretty much any local business. Then at the end of every year we as the taxpayers could evaluate just how good a job our elected guys are, in fact, doing to uphold their campaign promises.

Certainly, with all the educated folks in our fair town, we could find a model for them to use.
Should we get this to fruition, then it's "pie in the sky" should it take hold at higher levels of government.
Just an idea guys, care to comment?


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Mike
Submitted by sageadvice on Tue, 02/05/2008 - 1:21pm.

Accounting is not a science, it is an art. Most accountants have a BA degree in history or something.

Politicians decide what the art will look like.

Atlanta is a good example---the need to know between departments!

Business isn't much better, best recent examples: Banks and FORECLOSURES
and ENRON and those fancy foreign entities!

Management must be better, not systems.

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NIT
Mike King's picture
Submitted by Mike King on Mon, 02/04/2008 - 11:37am.

Until elected/appointed officials are held accountable these type circumstances will only worsen. This is why it is usually unwise to elect those who have yet to be responsible for meeting payroll demands or have yet to manage much of anything.
Financing at all levels of government rely heavily on the trust and lackadaisical nature of the governed. More simply put, they do not believe that we as the governed are capable of understanding what it is they're doing with public funds or even care.
With a greater percentage of Americans relying on the government for their livlihood, why would officials worry that anyone would "bite the hand that feeds it."
Should at some future date our government begin to be run in the manner that we manage our personal finances, then and only then, will be truly a free society.


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Mike
Submitted by sageadvice on Mon, 02/04/2008 - 12:38pm.

I have to say that maybe 75% of us do not manage our budgets very well either. Otherwise we wouldn't have so many in foreclosure and owe such enormous amounts on credit cards!

No, I think the cause is a cover-up, deliberate, in order to do what they want to do without it showing up every quarter, or ever if possible.

It is simple enough for experts to tell us the status at any given time if they do it in detail, and are allowed to do so by the government managers who hire them!

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