Now there is increasing evidence of the importance that information technology is getting in public administration and this is resulting in more and more insistence from the public that government financial executives have a greater say in all decision making activities of the government. The finance executives are now the individuals to lead the charge for getting an entrepreneurial type of government and have it judged based on its performance. For most of the finance executives now, the changes are leading to redesigning of entire processes related to finance, introducing best practices for financial management, improving and integrating financial management with other information management and in certain cases even shifting the responsib

The decision was taken that the state government would try to reach these targets within ten years. The decisions for allocation of funds and other matters were then to be made according to the achievements of targets. In one of these instances, the state wanted to reduce the use of drugs among students of the eighth standard to 3 percent from the original figure of 14 percent. Some time later it was realized that the target would not be reached, and then the solution sought for the problem was to change the target to 15 percent from 3 percent. At the end of the period, the proportion of users was 14 percent - the same as at the start of the plan - but it was viewed that the target has been reached. (The Problem with promises) These types of efforts by the accounts officers are just efforts to hide the truth and do not help any part of society.

These sorts of problems come up when the recruitment and hiring processes are not correct. Otherwise someone should have realized that it all right to hire individuals who are not financial experts, but every organization must have at least one individual with that capacity. It is clear that elementary oversight must be practiced. In the case of Orange County, supervisor Bill Steiner clearly admitted that he did not know what questions he should have asked, and this finally made him an accomplice in the whole unfortunate affair. It is important that individuals in charge of recruitment develop the knowledge of asking relevant financial questions. Even when the problem was noted, another mess was nearly started when the county thought of using a sales tax increase as their method of getting out of the situation. The county had fallen into a position where it had to decide on privatization, program reduction, asset sales, etc. the county was trying to take a simple way out. It is clear today that the increase in tax was neither intelligent nor needed. The best advice for the county was to file for financial bankruptcy and this was provided by the Board of Supervisor, Thomas Reilly. (Guarding the Public Checkbook) It is clear that finance executives have an important role and they must live up to the expectations of the people who they are serving.

On the other side, correct methods of performance measurement should also talk about the program results. From the side of the government, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board or GASB has been concentrating on performance measurement from the early 1980s. As a result of this concentration, there was a series of research reports called "Service Efforts and Accomplishments reporting" that was issued for the help of governments in measuring performance. This was followed up in 1994 with the second statement on the same lines. This stated that "service efforts and accomplishments information - including both financial and non-financial performance measures - is an essential aspect of the measurement of governmental performance and is necessary for assessing accountability and making informed decisions". (Performance Measurement)

Yet problems of this nature keep on happening and a Senator in United States was shocked to learn that District of Columbia had received an unqualified audit opinion though it had a deficit as high as $700 million. The reply from the audit firm was that the financial statements were presented properly and "in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles". (Guarding the Public Checkbook) Thus the matter should have been determined by the accounting executives and brought to the notice of the people as it is their funds that are not in order. The job of the leadership is to decide where the body has to be taken, and the finance executives have to determine what is happening to the revenue base, what are the major problems for the body, what are the implications of the changes that have been made, and so on. When the issue of Orange County bankruptcy hit the headlines, the final truth was revealed

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Approximate Word count = 2917
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)