Two people from different backgrounds and with different interests took the same college course on governmental accounting. One was a bookkeeper who worked for a medium sized government (population about 200,000) and wanted to get promoted to assistant accountant The assistant accountant would be more involved with setting up a new computer accounting system and with integrating some of the new contracting out into the accounting system. This person heard that generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) would be important but that the government wanted to use the computer not only to speed up bookkeeping but also to keep track of the new contractors who were taking on so many of the functions that the government previously handled. The other person was an officer in a taxpayers' association. The association was keenly interested in keeping taxes low and getting their value out of every cent the government spent.
The course was taught at a major college and was only given once every two years at most. Both people waited an entire year before they were able to take the course. Both had to beg to get into the class since they were not regular students at the college. Both also found out that they could take a three-day course on governmental accounting from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) but that course cost more than the college course and both felt that a fourteen-week course would be better than a three-day offering. Initially, these two people did not know each other.
The course used a standard governmental accounting textbook. The book started with GASB's principles for governmental accounting, then went through the accounting cycle for all governmental fund types, and covered the financial statements. For example, students learned what funds were and that funds were integral to governmental accounting. They also learned how to do debits and credits for each type of governmental fund (general, special revenue, capital project, and debt service). The instructor also had someone from the state come in and go over the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for the state. The speaker left several CAFRers and the class broke into groups for one class session to discuss the financial success and health of the government. One class was devoted to a computerized system where the students got to enter some data and print out a few financial statements. Not all the students were successful partly because the software was old and some student had essentially no experience with computers. The bookkeeper was successful; the officer in the taxpayers association was not.
Write two pages of dialog.
BK: TAP: