PLEASE SHARE THE
FOLLOWING with all of your contacts.
The "basic" information and disclosure that follows opens
the big door of true cognitive thinking wide open for those
that read and see what follows.
Thanks,
Walter - CAFR1
There is an "EXAMPLE" listing of a few
CAFRs by category listed here:
http://CAFR1.com/listings/Listings.html
It is a listing of about 4,200 CAFRs.
All are 2013 reports.
There are approximately 184,000 local
government operations, each produces it own financial
report each year so 4,200 is but a small fraction of the
local government CAFR or AFR reports prepared each
year.
A CAFR (Comprehensive Annual Financial
Report) is your local government's "Statement of Net
Worth" from the beginning of that City, County,
State, School District, Enterprise, government
entity.
Budget reports have been exclusively
spoon fed the population for the last several decades.
There is a BIG difference between a local government's
statement of net worth (the CAFR) and a 1-Year selectively
presented Budget report.
You could have a city crying they are
in the red short 100 million dollars needing to raise
taxes, but if you looked at the corresponding CAFR report
for the same city and noted ALL aspects of what was
contained therein, you may just see the same city is 1.5
billion in the Black.
Picture the Budget you may have for
operating your house. Let's say it was $45,000 this year.
You apply $45,000 to cover the cost of $45,000.
Well, let's say you spend $50,000 and
are now $5,000 in the red. Do you go knocking on your
neighbor's door saying: "I'm in trouble, my house budget
was $45,000 and I spent $50,000, can I borrow $5,000?"
NO YOU WOULD NOT!
You would look at your statement of
Net Worth. There let's say your "over-all" income was
$225,000 per year, you had been investing successfully for
50-years and had a portfolio balance of 1.7 million
dollars, etc.. and had a net worth of 2.3 million when all
was considered.
To meet the $5,000 shortfall of your
house budget, you would pull from your other sources of
income or assets to make up the $5,000 shortfall on your
budget this year. In fact with all things being considered,
that $5,000 would be pocket change to you.
Local governments for the last
65-years + have been playing the shell game of spoon
feeding Budget reports to the taxpayers while NEVER a
mention of their Annual Financial Report (CAFR or
AFR).
Keep in mind, just like the Budget you
set for your house, when anyone looks at it, they will be
able to account for every nickel, dime and penny applied
and spent. So if you have a deficit or a surplus for the
year that is all the viewer will see. If that was all the
viewer saw, and you had a $5,000 shortfall, then the viewer
would think you were $5,000 in the hole.
Now if you showed the viewer your
Statement of Net Worth, the viewer would then think and say
to you: "Damn, you are well off!"
Thus, here we have all of our local
governments playing the "Silence is Golden" rule spoon
feeding the taxpayer budget reports with never a mention of
their AFR or CAFR, and my has it been golden for them at the
taxpayer's expense over the last half a
century..
Download a few of those CAFRs relevant
to your location that you will find on the example Listings
page. Share with others from your community and REQUIRE
your local talking heads from the News Media to direct their
viewers to them for review and comment.
As noted those 4,200 example CAFRs are
but a few, a small percentage of the total completed each
year. To get the BIGGEST WAKE UP CALL of your life, think
"scope" and "size" of the "collective" totals from all.
Between local and Federal they OWN IT ALL by
investment.
On a last note:
Government was NOT supposed to operate at a profit. How did
they get around that pesky little rule? Well, if any local
government operation say made a hundred million dollar
profit for the year or expected to do the same for the next
ten-years, they would create a "liability" account, move
the hundred million over to the liability account and then
"Poof", there goes a hundred million dollar profit now
designated as a liability on the balance sheets.
So LOOK VERY CAREFULLY
at those many liability accounts listed. Are they truly
genuine or are they "Parking Zones" for wealth
obtained?
Being that there are many CAFRs and
AFRs for local governments that are not in the Example
listing, a good way to find those is through a Google
search. It is important to use quotes. An example of what to
put on the search line to pull up CAFRs say for Burbank, CA
would be to put on the search line the following using
quotes:
"The City of Burbank" CA "Annual
Financial Report"
In doing so it will pull up the hits
to view or download it if available via the Internet. You
can do the same for any State, County, School District,
University, College, Special District, Enterprise Authority,
etc.
Hope the above helps you and please
share with all that you know.
Provided FYI from,
Walter Burien - CAFR1
