The yearly comprehensive reporting of finances in the city of Cedar Falls, Iowa is compliant to GASB, the standards board for government accounting statement number 34. Statement 34 of the government board of accounting principles requires that the compilation of financial reports of Governmental institutions at state and native government stages to report the value of their infrastructure assets as well as have asset management systems ( Granof, & Bell, 2016) . The GASB-34 mandates research and management of more comprehensive financial reports that reflect the government's entry for financial health with regards to infrastructure assets replacement and repair. The Cedar Falls city’s fiscal statements for the year ended June 30, 2013, is completed and presented in a manner that enables easy and objective readability and evaluation of Cedar Fall city's economic performance in both the economic and statistics section.
In the financial section, the city of Cedar Falls, Iowa fiscal reporting for the financial year under scrutiny, has accounted for revenues and expenditure in the periods they were incurred or earned - accrual basis. In compliance with GASB -34, all long term and current assets and liabilities, including the general obligations debts, and infrastructure appear on the Balance Sheet- Governmental Funds on pages 35 to 36. From the financial report, infrastructure assets are considered as long term capital assets - capital assets for government long term or permanent activities ( Granof, & Bell, 2016) . However, buildings are not included in the financial report unless they form part of the ancillary infrastructure network. The statistics section of the fiscal statement offers an insight into the Cedar Falls’ economic trends, income capacity, debt capacity, demography on commercial functions, and working information. This information makes it easy for a reader easy review and determines the financial health of the state or local government entity.
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Management Discussion and Analysis
One significant area addressed by the city of Cedar Falls in the discussion and management examination is in the fund financial statements where there are two types of pooled money. For instance, the management adopted an accounting technique that evaluates the monitorial and financial resources, from government funds, that have a more straightforward conversion to money ( Zdanovskis & Pilvere, 2019) . The other significant aspect that is noticeable in the management discussion and analysis is the proprietary funds. From these proprietary resources, the city uses the enterprise kitty to report its stormwater, refuse, and sewer expenses. The use of the funds is very significant as it allows for secure and transparent accountability.
Accounting Policies
There are several bookkeeping policies that the city of Cedar Falls utilizes, and one of them is in reporting entries. There are entries that the city enters in a separate column but still under the same financial statements. The point of entering them in a separate column is to justify that these discreetly presented component units are lawfully unattached to Cedar Falls city. Another policy is the reporting of the government-wide fiscal report through the measurement focus of economic resources as well as the foundation of the accumulating accounting. The same reporting system is applicable for the proprietary fund budgetary reports.
Statistical Section
The City’s Progress
As much as there is an annual increment in the city of Cedar Falls' expenditure in the form of government activities as well as business-type activities, there has been a yearly appreciation of program revenues as well. Therefore, it is evident that the city has been growing at a steady pace from the year 2004.
The City’s Utilization of Funds
The Cedar Falls city used cash reserves from the hospital funds to finance improvement projects like the construction of the Facilities for bio-solids handling and UV Disinfection Water Reclamation Facility. The only restriction in the use of the funds is the availability of funds from the Health trust Board that contributed to the increase in fund balance.
Function Budget FY-2013
In the Financial year ending 2013, the debt service payments were reallocated from the special revenue or proprietary funds and assigned to the debt service resources. The reason was the payment of service debt comes typically due while the other fund under the function budget is the capital projects fund. Items that are inclusive of this fund comprise the FEMA fund and the Bond account. With the bond resources, gains have no association with proprietary funds together with capital projects and linked with the sale of bonds
Infrastructure Assets
According to Myšková and Hájek (2017 ), capital assets comprise assets in this category and include all city assets that are of economic consequence and tangible but are not realized economically. These resources consist of recreational facilities, drains, bridges, roads, and technological infrastructure. For instance, the infrastructure assets possessed by the Cedar Falls city include historic buildings, traffic signals, parking lots, streets, lift stations, large vehicles, sewers, and computer equipment, among many others.
General Fund
The TIF resources and the funds for road repair are a direct allocation of the general account. The TIF trust is specifically for the accounting of property levies that are from tax financing increment and is entered as a debt service fund ( Granof, & Bell, 2016) . On the contrary, the city accounts for the street repair funds through income allocated by the state for the maintenance and improvement of the streets of Cedar Falls. These financial resources meant for the repair of the roads appear in the general fund as entities of the capital projects funds.
Journal Entry
|
Debit |
Credit |
|
| ASSETS | ||
| Cash | ||
| Property Taxes |
$2,045,522.00 |
- |
| Other City Taxes |
- |
$800,872.00 |
References
Granof, M., & Bell, S. (2016). A 10-K for the Taxpayer: The Federal Financial Report Provides a Comprehensive Look at the US Government's Financial Metrics and Perspective on Future Issues and Challenges. Journal of Accountancy , 222 (4), 46.
Myšková, R., & Hájek, P. (2017). Comprehensive assessment of firm financial performance using financial ratios and linguistic analysis of annual reports. Journal of International Studies, volume 10, issue: 4 .
Zdanovskis, K., & Pilvere, I. (2019). 2. To identify shortcomings for a comprehensive analysis of the NGO. RURAL DEVELOPMENT, 2019 , 2 , 119.
