Three Questions with Relmond Van Daniker
Executive Director
Association of Government Accountants (AGA)

Relmond Van Daniker, DBA, CPA is the Executive Director of the Association of Government Accountants (AGA). He recently spoke with the editors of "Managing Change" to explain his organization's charter, as well as the AGA's views on the financial implications of real property asset management.

Q: What does your job entail?

A: Founded in 1950, AGA is an individually based membership organization that supports the careers and professional development of government financial management professionals working in federal, state and local governments as well as the private sector and academia. As of this writing, AGA has 14,000 members located throughout the United States as well as abroad in many other countries. Through education, research, publications, certification and conferences, AGA fulfills its mission of advancing government accountability.

As the Executive Director for AGA, I provide leadership in the planning, organizing, and directing of sound programs for the organization, while maintaining high service standards consistent with the Association's mission statement and long-range strategic plan. Our strategic themes include:

• Accountability - Promote and advance accountability in government
• Certification - Make the Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM) the preferred professional designation in the government accountability community
• Education & Research - Provide comprehensive education and research to meet the changing needs of the government accountability profession
• Service - Provide members and customers with quality programs, products and services

AGA is an organization trying to make a big difference. Over the past year, AGA has made tremendous strides as the thought leader for government financial management. Here are just a few of the exciting programs currently under way at AGA:

• Research - We have six published research reports and have six other projects in the works. Topics range from internal controls to trends in technology to performance reporting to process based accounting and purchase cards.
• Performance and Accountability - In May at a black tie dinner, we recognized nine federal agencies for their fiscal year 2005 performance and accountability reporting efforts by awarding them AGA's prestigious Certificate of Excellence in Accountability Reporting (CEAR). We have a similar program at the state and local level of government that encourages regular issuance of high-quality service efforts and accomplishments reports. These programs show our commitment to improving the performance and accountability of federal, state and local governments for the benefit of the American people.
• Certified Government Financial Manager (CGFM) Designation: The CGFM is the first certification broad enough to cover the whole field of government financial management - federal, state and local. It deals not with testing a person in a specific area, but with measuring a wide range of knowledge and skills that a professional needs to succeed in the federal government financial environment, or to meet the unique challenges faced by state and local government financial managers. This past year we have seen a large increase in the number of individuals applying for and attaining the certification, especially by our private sector members.
• AGA Conferences - I am so thrilled by the overwhelming successes of our most recent national conferences - the National Leadership Conference held in Washington, D.C. and the Annual Professional Development Conference held in San Diego, CA. The record-setting attendance at both events was a testament to the outstanding technical programs, which brought together our private sector members with federal, state and local government leaders to share information and best practices.
• Citizen Centric Government - Governments produce financial statements that are too large and too cumbersome for the average citizen to understand. Citizens have a right to know how their governments are spending their money and if the money is being spent efficiently and effectively. I believe that this can be accomplished through a four-page report that answers the question, 'Are we better off today than we were last year?' Governments would be encouraged to include such a report in their local newspaper. AGA has developed a draft prototype template and several of our members have turned it into mock reports for their local governments. In the short term, we are continuing to refine the prototype and plan on a full-blown marketing effort to encourage governments to adopt the prototype in the next year.

For more information, please visit the AGA website at www.agacgfm.org.

Q: What is your view of the interaction between real property asset management and federal fiscal responsibility?

A: There is a high correlation between real property asset management and federal fiscal responsibility and it appears as if most of the federal government is not doing too well at managing their assets efficiently. The agencies that have been given authority to use enhanced value leasing - Army, Veterans Affairs, Navy, and Air Force - are doing better than the others. The President's Management Agenda added real property asset management to its list of areas of interest that it grades federal agencies on and most are still red. The GAO added managing federal real property to its high-risk list in 2003 and it is still there in 2005. GAO also issued a report on potential multibillion-dollar costs from deteriorating and unused federal buildings.

Recent guidelines from the FRPC require agencies to inventory their assets, get rid of unneeded holdings and implement maintenance plans. They are struggling to do so. However, legislation makes it difficult to sell property and any revenues thus earned cannot be kept by the agency but must be returned to the Treasury: there is little incentive for them to get rid of holdings. These are the mitigating circumstances.

Q: How do these efforts to improve federal real property management affect the average citizen?

A: If federal agencies are missing out on revenue opportunities, that is money that could have gone in services to the citizen. Instead, other funds have to be used. So improvements would increase the money available to provide services to the citizen, the taxpayer and the community. The ideal would be to do something whereby the government still holds title, the property is still used in the way it was intended for, and everybody benefits, as can be seen from some of the examples of enhanced value leasing.

Good fiscal responsibility means making the best possible use of the asset. The question is how to make the best use of these assets that may be underutilized but cannot be sold. Consideration should be given to allowing greater use of practices such as enhanced value leasing, or arrangements whereby the government swaps the use of some of its land for, say, a golf course, in exchange for a private sector company building a much needed hospital.