The National Association of State Comptrollers held a business meeting on March 17 in Salt Lake City, Utah, in conjunction with the 2016 NASC Annual Conference. President John Reidhead, director of the Division of Finance in Utah, welcomed everyone.    

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Rob Hamilton, manager of statewide accounting in Oregon and chair of the Advisory Committee for State Comptrollers: Technical Activities and Functions, reported that Microsoft OneDrive is being used to edit the data in the tables for the comptrollers’ book this year. OneDrive allows users to see responses from other states while editing/entering their own state’s data. States are currently working on providing data for the short-term portion (the first seven chapters of the book). The long-term portion (the last seven chapters of the book) will soon be made available for editing.  

Thomas L. White, Jr., state comptroller of Alabama and chair of the Committee on the Financial Plan, reported that the 2017 NASC Financial Plan shows a positive projection. Much of this is due to the financial success of the NASC annual conference. The middle management conference projects a loss; however, we want to continue to hold this conference because it provides good training and networking among peers. A proposal to increase the NASC technical services fees from $2,000 to $2,500 was discussed and approved. In FY 2018 there will be a $250 increase, and in FY 2019 there will be an additional $250 increase. The last increase in fees was in FY 2010.   

Diane Langham, former fiscal management director in Mississippi and chair of the Committee on Outreach, reported that since the August 2015 meeting, NASC has the following new members:

• Mississippi:  Mark Valentine is the new fiscal management director. He replaces Ms. Langham who took another position.  
• Vermont:  Andy Pallito is the new commissioner, replacing Jim Reardon, who retired.  
• Tom Shack (MA), Mark Valentine (MS), Cody Pearce (MT) and Jerry Broz (NE) were in attendance at their first NASC conference as principal members.  

Ed Ross, state controller of Kentucky and chair of the Resolutions Committee, put forth the following resolutions for consideration and approval by NASC’s members:

1. Thanking Glen B. Gainer III, state auditor of West Virginia, for his leadership and service in to NASC and its members. Mr. Gainer will be leaving public service in May 2016.
2. Thanking Mr. Reidhead for his leadership during his year as NASC’s president and for his support of the Association.

Both resolutions were unanimously approved.

Brandon Woolf, state controller of Idaho and chair of the Site Committee, reported that incoming NASC President Anna Maria Kiehl, state comptroller of Pennsylvania, has agreed to host the 2017 conference in Harrisburg. The conference will be held on March 15-17. Mr. White will be the host in March 2018 and is considering hosting the conference in Montgomery, Alabama.

Kristopher Knight, director of the Division of Accounting in Delaware and chair of the Committee on Accounting and Financial Reporting, reported that the committee is currently considering the following exposure drafts from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board:

• Fiduciary Activities
• Certain Asset Retirement Obligations
• Leases

NASACT will participate in the public hearing process in April on the Fiduciary Activities ED with Mr. Knight providing the testimony.

Anna Maria Kiehl, state comptroller of Pennsylvania and chair of the Program Committee, thanked the members of the committee. She reported that there were a total of 157 attendees at the conference in Salt Lake City, with state attendees from 29 different states.

James Smack, chief deputy controller in Nevada and member of the Middle Management Conference Committee, reported that the conference will be held in Austin, Texas, on April 12-14. He mentioned some of the topics for the conference and encouraged members to send staff. The group also discussed the possibility of changing the name of the conference to the Emerging Leaders Conference.

David Von Moll, state comptroller of Virginia and chair of the Nominating Committee, brought forth the following 2016-2017 Executive Committee roster for a vote by the membership:

• President: Anna Maria Kiehl, Pennsylvania
• Vice president: Thomas L. White, Jr., Alabama
• Secretary/treasurer: Cynthia Cloud, Wyoming
• Immediate past president: John C. Reidhead, Utah
• Alan Skelton, Georgia
• Steve Barnett, South Dakota
• Kristopher Knight, Delaware
• Stacy Neal, Missouri

The new committee was unanimously approved.

INFORMATION SHARING GROUPS

Reports were provided on activities of the following NASC information sharing groups:

• Electronic Payments (Lynne Bajema, state comptroller of Oklahoma and chair).
• State Government Payroll (Audrey Musgrave, administrator of the Division of Statewide Payroll in Idaho). 
• Travel & P-card (Patti Everill, senior financial specialist in Idaho and co-chair).

OTHER TOPICS

NASACT’s Executive Committee voted to reduce the travel assistance for the NASACT annual conference from $2,000 to $1,500. For the NASC and NSAA annual conferences the travel assistance will be decreased from $1,000 to $750. This will allow NASACT to have a more gradual decline toward the target reserve level.

Cornelia Chebinou provided a Washington update including information on the DATA Act, the Financial Transparency Act, the Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, municipal market issues and the Department of Labor’s Fair Labor Standards Act definition of overtime.

NEXT MEETING OR MORE INFORMATION
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The next scheduled NASC business meeting will occur in conjunction with the 2016 NASACT Annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, in August. 
Questions about the content of this article may be directed to Kim O’Ryan.