Three Tools for Good Citizenship

After accounting for all government revenues and expenditures, perhaps the greatest responsibility that I have as South Carolina’s Comptroller General is to ensure that our citizens, their government representatives, the media, and the financial markets have clear and easily understood information about our state’s financial activities and performance.

State government will spend more than $20 billion this year generated from taxes imposed on the citizens of South Carolina. Every dollar coming in and going out must be correctly accounted for. Voters must know how their elected representatives are spending their money, and legislators must have clear and reliable information about revenues, expenses, and trends so that they can make informed decisions. Since media representatives have the daily responsibility of reporting on the activities of government, they need information they can easily understand and incorporate into their reporting. And just as credit bureaus are continually determining the credit worthiness of each of us based on our history of paying our bills on time, financial markets are assessing the soundness of our state’s finances and credit worthiness each time state government seeks to borrow money.

The Comptroller General’s Office is responsible for ensuring that every department of state government correctly accounts for revenues and expenses, and we summarize and publicly report that information. National associations regularly evaluate how well we report this financial information to those who use it.

I am proud that South Carolina is annually awarded a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association for our “Comprehensive Annual Financial Report” or CAFR. Our CAFR is an accountant’s dream, because it is a detailed report, numbering nearly 250 pages, loaded with highly technical information that accountants love to read and discuss. We complete and distribute this major report by Thanksgiving each year, much sooner than most states, for the fiscal year that ended the previous June 30. We not only receive commendations for the professionalism and thoroughness of our CAFR, but we are commended consistently for its timeliness because we produce and distribute it sooner than nearly any other state.

This past January we issued an entirely new report called a Popular Annual Financial Report or PAFR. We prepared this very readable and understandable 16 page report for the benefit of our citizens who are not accountants but who are interested in learning more about state government’s performance. Our PAFR reviews the state’s economy, focuses on key financial highlights, and looks at numerous programs and services like highways, prisons, state parks, education, and the state lottery. To date, only a few other states have produced similar reports, although many are now considering doing so. South Carolina is among the leaders in this pioneering effort.

The Association of Government Accountants (AGA), a respected national organization, is working to improve government accountability with better “citizen centric reporting,” that is, meaningful information about the financial condition and performance of government that can be easily understood by the average citizen. The AGA recently challenged our state to prepare a “citizen centric” annual report that would be even more streamlined and understandable than our new 16 page Popular Annual Financial Report.

South Carolina soon will be one of the first states in the nation to provide “A Report to Our Citizens” based on the AGA’s helpful guidelines. Our newest and most readable report is prepared as a four page pamphlet, and it provides citizens with simple charts and statistics on changes in our population, employment, per capita income, public school enrollment, number of state government employees, revenues and expenses, major developments in state government finances, and future challenges.

All three of these reports, ranging from very detailed to very summarized, will be available on our website at www.cg.sc.gov. I ask South Carolinians to email or call me with any questions or suggestions about these reports or any other aspect of the state’s finances.

It is important that we all take greater responsibility for what government does, to hold our elected representatives accountable for spending our money, and to remember that ultimately government is of, by, and for “we the people.” I’m committed to making government more and more transparent and accountable, and I believe these three important reports about state finances will be essential annual tools for good citizenship and conscientious voting. As the great World War II General Omar Bradley once reflected, “If you will help run our government in the American way, then there will never be danger of our government running America in the wrong way.”