95 percent of Americans Less Than Happy with Government Financial Reporting
The federal government is failing to meet the financial reporting needs of taxpayers, falling short of expectations and creating a problem with trust, according to the Association of Government Accountants.
The survey found an “expectations gap” between what taxpayers expect and what they get, finding that the public at large overwhelmingly believes that government has the obligation to report and explain how it generates and spends its money, but that that it is failing to meet expectations in any area included in the survey.
The survey, “Public Attitudes to Government Accountability and Transparency 2008,” measured attitudes and opinions towards government financial management and accountability to taxpayers.
Taxpayers consider governments at the federal, state and local levels to be significantly under-delivering in terms of practicing open, honest spending. Across all levels of government those surveyed held “being open and honest in spending practices” vitally important, but felt that government performance was poor in this area.
Those surveyed also considered government performance to be poor in terms of being “responsible to the public for its spending.” This is compounded by perceived poor performance in providing understandable and timely financial management information.
The survey shows:
— The American public is most dissatisfied with government financial management information disseminated by the federal government.
— 72 percent say that it is extremely or very important to receive this information from the federal government, but only 5 percent are extremely or very satisfied with what they receive.
— 73 percent of Americans believe that it is extremely or very important for the federal government to be open and honest in its spending practices, yet only 5 percent say they are meeting these expectations.
— 71 percent of those who receive financial management information from the government or believe it is important to receive it, say they would use the information to influence their vote.
Relmond Van Daniker, Executive Director at AGA, said, “We commissioned this survey to shed some light on the way the public perceives those issues relating to government financial accountability and transparency that are important to our members. Nobody is pretending that the figures are a shock, but we are glad to have established a benchmark against which we can track progress in years to come.”
He continued, “AGA members working in government at all levels are in the very forefront of the fight to increase levels of government accountability and transparency. We believe that the traditional methods of communicating government financial information — through reams of audited financial statements that have little relevance to the taxpayer — must be supplemented by government financial reporting that expresses complex financial details in an understandable form. Our members are committed to taking these concepts forward.”
Justin Greeves, who led the team at Harris Interactive that fielded the survey for the AGA said, “The survey results include some extremely stark, unambiguous findings. Public levels of dissatisfaction and distrust of government spending practices came through loud and clear, across every geography, demographic group and political ideology. Worthy of special note, perhaps, is a 67 percentage point gap between what taxpayers expect from government and what they receive. These are significant findings that I hope government and the public find useful.”
