Governmental Accounting Standards Board Research Articles

Measuring Disclosure Content Within the MD&A: The Case of North Carolina Counties

Audit implementation of Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 34 guidelines has yielded increased levels of disclosure content within local government comprehensive annual financial reports (CAFRs). Of particular interest is the Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A) content that provides a prelude to primary statements establishing unit overall financial position. In this study, the level of disclosure content is measured using net position, fund balance, and organizational factors among all 100 North Carolina County governments for fiscal year 2019. The empirical analysis suggests that disclosure content within area of foci changes depending on increased audit fees, state designated tier level, specific departmental spending, and lengthier MD&As. Additional information illuminates a very limited auditor pool and some recalcitrance concerning service provision. Overall, the findings point to audit disclosure practices including the MD&A as being predicated on unit overall needs versus illumination.

The interesting case of special and extraordinary items: What are they and how do they influence municipal government finances?

AbstractOne‐shot revenue shocks influence government budget decisions and service provision. However, how governments respond to transitory income remains a theoretical and empirical puzzle. The permanent income hypothesis posits that governments save windfalls to smooth expenditures, while other models predict spending increases. Empirical findings are inconclusive as the focus has been on revenues that are not truly transitory. The case of special and extraordinary gains allows us to investigate the effects of transitory resources. Taking advantage of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board's requirement that governments report such gains in their financial statements, this study examines the effects of gains on expenses for a sample of cities across 10 years. Using a staggered adoption event study design, we find that gains stimulate spending and that the size of gains matters before one observes the stimulatory effects. These results have substantial implications for budgetary transparency and fiscal sustainability in municipal governments.

A review of GASB No. 34

PurposeThis paper documents the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 34 literature, primarily in the areas of (1) accountability and improved reporting, (2) government-wide financial statements and accrual accounting and (3) infrastructure asset capitalization and the modified approach. The paper also evaluates the state of the research, recognizes implications for practice and standard setting, identifies knowledge gaps and proposes avenues for future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors identified the articles in this narrative review by searching Google Scholar and EBSCO for the years 2000 through 2023, using the keywords GASB 34, government-wide financial statements, government fund statements, infrastructure assets and modified approach.FindingsThis review finds that GASB 34 requirements improved accountability and reporting, but GASB can still make improvements. The addition of the MD&A section requirement improved readability but placed a burden on preparers. Analysis of government-wide statement research indicates that the accrual-based Statement of Net Assets provides value in credit decisions, while the accrual-based Statement of Activities does not. The research on infrastructure accounting requirements shows limited adoption of the modified approach and some comparability issues with choices involving capitalization thresholds, baselines and asset management systems (AMSs). Based on this review, the authors also present suggestions to further this line of research.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first article that reviews over 20 years of GASB 34 related literature. The review and suggestions for future research are timely as GASB is in the process of reexamining some of GASB 34's requirements.

The economic consequences of GASB financial statement disclosure

We examine whether Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) financial statement disclosure alters local governments' economic decision-making. To do so, we exploit a recent GASB standard that eliminated differences in the disclosure requirements for county governments' pension obligations. The standard, GASB 68, had no effect on pension economics or the annual budget—it affected only whether and how information was presented on GASB financial statements. Using a broad hand-collected dataset, we document that counties that did not disclose information about their pension obligations before GASB 68 reduced public welfare expenditures, employment, and salary expenses relative to those that had disclosed such information. We conduct extensive field research and employ several cross-sectional analyses to conclude that the effects we document are in part driven by increased awareness of the financial costs of pension obligations by newly disclosing counties.

Accounting policies in the public sector: Characteristics and consequences of accounting for capital assets

We study the evolution of American state and local governments’ capital asset accounting policies from the initial adoption of Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34 through the fiscal year ending in 2016. We document substantial cross-sectional and time-series variation in capital asset accounting policies, which potentially diminishes the comparability of capital asset accounting information across governments and over time. We also explore the economic implications of those policies in terms of capital investment decisions and capital asset condition ratios, as reported in governments’ annual financial reports. Our findings, which are relevant to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board and its constituents, extend prior research examining the adoption and application of generally accepted accounting principles in the public sector.

Preparer Opposition and Strategic Implementation of Governmental Accounting Standards: Evidence from Public Pension Accounting Reform

Widely acknowledged as one of the most controversial standards in governmental accounting, Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statements 67/68 radically altered both the recognition and measurement for defined benefit public pensions. The standards require the recognition of previously only disclosed unfunded pension liabilities and increase the magnitude of reported pension liabilities by requiring the partial incorporation of a market-based discount rate. Although the recognition proposal was unaltered from its initial conception to the final standards, the discount rate proposal was significantly attenuated after the initial proposal met with unanimous preparer opposition. Accordingly, we examine what incentives drive preparer lobbying positions, whether such lobbying is aligned with user interests, and how such lobbying affects ex post implementation of the final standard. Our results suggest a misalignment between preparer lobbying and a user interest perspective. In particular, although state opposition for liability-increasing proposals is positively associated with expected financial statement impact, economic constraints, and political ramifications, user lobbying exhibits the opposite relationship, suggesting that users demand greater transparency in the states most likely to eschew it. We further find that state governments consistently opposed to the market-based discount rate are more likely to maintain status quo higher discount rates that lower reported liabilities after the implementation of GASB 67/68. Examining the mechanism, we find that opposing states avoid the market-rate trigger by increasing required contributions from employees rather than by increasing government funding or implementing benefit cuts. The evidence taken together contributes to our understanding of the development and implementation of the landmark GASB 67/68 standards. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting. Funding: The authors acknowledge financial support from Brigham Young University and Georgetown University. Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4515 .

Summaries of Articles

Summaries of Articles

Deferred outflows of resources and deferred inflows of resources and municipal bond borrowing cost

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) under Concepts Statement No. 4, Elements of Financial Statements (2007a) introduced two new elements to government financial reporting: deferred outflows of resources and deferred inflows of resources. Given the large size of the municipal bond market, and the debate surrounding the GASB’s development of financial reporting requirements for these new elements, we investigate the associated changes to governments’ financial statements and the extent to which these changes may have influenced municipal borrowing costs.Our findings indicate that many governments were impacted by the introduction of the new financial statement elements, and the amounts reported as deferred outflows (inflows) of resources are negatively (positively) associated with interest costs on newly issued general obligation bonds. These findings should be informative to the GASB and users of municipal financial reports, such as bond market participants. Overall, our findings counter arguments made that the new financial statement elements would create needless complexity and confusion by suggesting a potential benefit of the financial statement changes.

GASB 68 AND ITS IMPACT ON THE COST OF STATES’ DEBT

Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement number 68 (GASB 68) significantly changes how states and local government organizations report the financial position of their defined-benefit pension plans. In this paper, we investigate the effects of GASB 68 on the cost of debt. Using bond yield-spread as a proxy for cost of debt, we find that the cost of debt increased after GASB 68, and the increase is more pronounced for states with larger pension deficits. Our findings suggest that bond investors consider recognized and disclosed pension information differently in their pricing decisions. Our results have important implications for analysts and accounting standard setters.

Toward an understanding of year-over-year changes in municipal management discussion and analysis disclosures

SynopsisUsing a unique setting in which the standard setter (the Governmental Accounting Standards Board) provides guidance on the content of Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) disclosures, we investigate the determinants of content changes in municipal government MD&A. We do so in terms of economic changes, turnover, and regulatory characteristics. We use a sample of 1142 municipal MD&A disclosures from fiscal year 2011 to 2015 to calculate a difference score based on the degree to which municipal MD&As change from the previous year. Our empirical analysis highlights that MD&A content changes vary directly with changes in the unemployment rate, fund balance from governmental funds, and auditor turnover. Furthermore, we find evidence that MD&A content changes might be more likely in states without formal GAAP mandates, possibly implying that municipal managers increase transparency by complementing reported financial information with additional qualitative commentary in narrative disclosures when states do not centralize fiscal control over municipalities. Overall, our analysis provides insight on the use of qualitative disclosure by municipal managers, and highlights a need for enhanced commentary on certain items (such as debt and capital expenditures) in order to create greater credibility with and accountability to citizens and other financial statement users. This research is especially timely as GASB re-examines the disclosure mandates of GASB 34.

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Does financial disclosure matter? GASB 45 and municipal borrowing costs

ABSTRACT Financial disclosure is crucial to achieve fiscal transparency and government accountability. In 2004, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued Statement No. 45 to require the disclosure of information about other postemployment benefits (OPEB). Using a panel of U.S. counties and the bonds they issued between 1999 and 2012, this paper examines the effects of GASB 45 on municipal borrowing costs. GASB 45 increases borrowing costs of county governments, with the effects decreasing over time. GASB 45 has a larger effect on borrowing costs of county governments issuing bonds of lower credit quality and adopting the generally accepted accounting standards (GAAP).

Separation in the Municipal Debt Market Following GASB 34 Implementation

Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34 (GASB 34), issued in 1999 with required implementation beginning in 2002, comprehensively and substantially changed the financial reporting model for state and local governments. Evidence reported in this study supports the notion that GASB 34 implementation created meaningful separation in the municipal debt market. High financial governments delayed, and low financial quality governments accelerated, new debt issuances in anticipation of GASB 34 implementation. Following GASB 34, high financial quality governments issued less insured debt and used greater debt relative to alternative financing sources (when compared with low financial quality governments). These results both support the efficacy of GASB 34 implementation and inform ongoing GASB deliberations regarding the financial reporting model for state and local governments.

State and Local Government Pension Funding on the Eve of the COVID-19 Recession.

This article examines the funding of public pension plans through 2019. Particular attention is paid to the impact of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s Standard No. 68. It addressed (1) discount rates, (2) amortization periods, (3) asset valuation and smoothing, and (4) the actuarial cost method used. The combined effect of these measures has been to increase the amount of public pension underfunding significantly. The actuarial funded ratio of the 126 plans in the Public Plans Database went from 101.9 in 2001 to 71.9 in 2019, on the eve of the COVID-19 recession. It will no doubt continue to worsen in the years ahead. The extent of that likely worsening is also explored.

The Determinants of Public Pension Debt in U.S. States

State and local governments across the United States of America (USA) were hit hard by the recent recession. The fiscal stress alerted the public to the increasing amount of public pension debt for which, despite snowballing levels of pension debt, the causes are unclear. This article examines the factors contributing to annual changes in unfunded public pension ratios, focusing in particular on public pension management (including investment performance, investment assumptions, and accounting practices). The data on pension debt for state defined benefit plans comes from the Pew Charitable Trusts for the period 2005 to 2015. Two methods (random-effects and general estimating equation) were used to verify the consistency of the results. These results showed that investment return decreases the annual change in the public pension debt while using a project unit credit method, and the implementation of the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) Statement 67 increase the annual change in the public pension debt. These findings illustrate the importance of public pension management in explaining public pension debt.

The Economic Consequences of GASB Financial Statement Disclosure

We examine whether Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) financial statement disclosure influences local governments’ economic decision-making. To do so, we exploit a recent GASB standard that differentially changed the disclosure requirements for pension obligations for county governments. The standard, GASB 68, had no effect on pension economics nor on the annual budget—it only affected whether and how information was presented on GASB financial statements and did so differently depending on the type of pension plan sponsored by the county. Using a broad hand-collected dataset, we document that newly disclosing counties reduced public welfare expenditures, employment, and salary expenses relative to those that had disclosed such information prior to GASB 68. We conduct extensive field research and employ several cross-sectional analyses to conclude that the effects we document are likely driven by increased awareness of the financial costs of pension obligations by newly disclosing counties. More specifically, we find that GASB 68 changed these counties’ perspective of their pension arrangement from a bill (i.e., the county only has to make an annual pension contribution) to a liability (i.e., the county is ultimately responsible for funding the pension deficit), and that this new perspective generated the documented fiscal response.

Professional Jurisdiction, Organizational Boundaries, & the Scope of Standard Setting Authority

This paper examines the ardent stakeholder response to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s (GASB) Preliminary Views on Economic Condition Reporting: Financial Projections (ECR), which would have mandated governments to publish financial projections. The stakeholder response to the proposed inclusion of forward-looking information within government financial statements not only resulted in the GASB removing ECR from its agenda, but also in the revision to the standard setting process itself through the redefinition of the GASB’s Scope of Authority. By examining this conflict using historical and contemporary sources, our study makes two primary contributions. First, we highlight the ways in which work performed by accounting practitioners and other professional groups can limit the jurisdictional claims of proposed accounting standards. Second, we point to reconciliation as a potential solution to conflict around the expansion of accounting work. However, the failure of ECR also highlights the political nature of report reconciliation, and the limits on its use by accounting standard setters.

The Impact of Governmental Accounting Standards on Public-Sector Pension Funding

The funding policy for defined benefit pension plans covering government employees represents an important decision for government entities sponsoring those plans. In recent years, a number of state and local governments have experienced extreme funding shortfalls (e.g., New Jersey, Illinois, and Detroit), raising concerns about whether government entities are contributing enough to their pensions. Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statements Number 67/68 (hereafter, “GASB 67/68”) fundamentally alter the financial reporting of pension liabilities, by (i) requiring pension liabilities to be estimated using a potentially lower discount rate (which increases estimated liabilities and any funding deficits), and (ii) mandating recognition of funding deficits (surpluses), which were previously only disclosed in footnotes, as a liability (asset) on governmental balance sheets. Although GASB 67/68 only changes financial reporting requirements and acknowledges specifically that funding decisions are outside its scope, we find, for a sample of 100 large state-administered plans, that governments increase pension contributions upon applying GASB 67/68, over time as well as compared to corporate pension plans as a control group in difference-in-differences tests. In cross-sectional tests within governmental plans, the funding response is primarily observed from governments expecting a larger dollar impact to applying GASB 67/68, and from governments facing more adverse economic or political consequences from financial statement recognition. Government plans that increase funding are also more likely to have passed benefit cuts, suggesting that taxpayers and public employees share the costs. Overall, these responses suggest that governmental entities are willing to take actions with cash flow consequences to avoid recognizing large liabilities on-balance sheet; purely accounting changes, therefore, can have “real” effects on governmental pension policy.

Tax Abatement Disclosures: An Exploratory Study of Professional’s Perceptions and Early Disclosures of GASB Statement No. 77

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.

The effect of GAAP conformity on pension underfunding

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the association between conformity with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) indicated by Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) 34 presentation and pension underfunding in Illinois.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a fixed effects regression and employed a sample of Illinois municipalities (n=2,565 municipal-year observations) over the period 2009–2014.FindingsThe findings show that GAAP is inversely associated with pension underfunding, but only among the subsample of municipalities that are within the healthy pension funding range, i.e., above 80 percent funded. These municipalities may be in a better position to increase pension funding in response to the disciplining effect of broad GAAP conformity.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper focuses solely on one state and one multi-employer plan. Future studies should consider assessing the applicability of the results to other states and plan settings.Social implicationsThe results inform the standard-setting process, particularly as the implementation of the new GASB standards is evaluated and as GASB 34 is reexamined.Originality/valueDespite concerns associated with state and local pension underfunding, academic studies examining its determinants are few. The sample setting is representative of municipal pension plans in the USA (with a comparable average pension funding ratio of 74.2 percent) and provides variability in GAAP conformity (the state encourages, but does not require, financial statement presentation consistent with GASB 34), as well as homogeneity in actuarial assumptions across observations (all sample municipalities participate in a large multi-employer municipal pension plan). The sample period immediately precedes the implementation of GASB Statements Nos 67 and 68, which increase the scope of pension reporting, providing the opportunity to consider the effects of broad GAAP conformity and a baseline for subsequent consideration of the effects of the new standards.