April
2011
2011 Call for Papers, Panels, etc.
ABFM returns to Nation’s Capital for 23rd
Annual Conference, October 13th-15th
The Association for Budgeting and
Financial Management (www.abfm.org)
invites proposals for panels, papers, and
presentations for the 2011 ABFM
conference. We especially encourage
proposals from federal, state, and local
practitioners. The focus of the
conference is on budgeting and
financial management at all levels of
government in the United States, as well
as international and comparative
perspectives. Potential topics include,
but are not limited to:
 Federal and State Fiscal Challenges
 Budgetary Theory
 The Politics of the Budgetary Process
 International and Comparative
Budgeting
 Budget Balancing Strategies
 Federal Stimulus Reporting and
Outcomes
 Tax Policy and Administration
 History of Budgeting
 Budgeting in Poor Countries
 Budgeting and Economic
Development
 Executive and Legislative Budget
Politics
 Citizen Participation in Budgeting
 Transportation Policy and Finance
 Current Trends in Public Finance
 Budget Reform, Innovation, and
Process
 Funding Healthcare
 Forecasting
 Financial Leadership
For more information on ABFM, visit our website, www.abfm.org
A research section of
The American Society for
Public Administration
 Intergovernmental Finance
 Municipal Securities
 Performance Budgeting
 Budgeting for National Security
 Debt Financing and Management
 Investing Public Funds
 Accounting and Financial Reporting The Washington Marriott will be home once again to ABFM’s
 Revenue Diversification Annual Conference in Washington, DC, October 13th-15th
 Nonprofit Financial Issues
 Capital Planning and Management 2011 ABFM Annual Conference Registration
 Managing Financial Risk
Will be made available ONLINE at our website,
WWW.ABFM.ORG
 Education Finance
To reserve a room at the conference rate, call the
Please submit all proposals by Washington Marriott
Sunday, May 1, 2011 (888) 236-2427
Proposals should be submitted to: This hotel does not provide direct shuttle service to
any DC-area airport. On-site parking is available
(valet optional)
James Savage
jds2y@virginia.edu
Department of Politics
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400787, S187 Gibson Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22902-4787
Proposals will be reviewed and
competitively selected. Presenters will
be required to register for the
conference in advance. Proposals
should include a brief description of
the topic, name(s) of participants/
authors, position/job title, institutional
affiliation, address (including email), “Seats of Financial Power”
and phone number. Students should Tour of Washington
Which buildings are these?
provide their degree program, status Why are they important?
(master’s level, Ph.D., ABD), and Share your thoughts at
institutional affiliation. Facebook.com/abfm1
Line Item, April 2011 Page 2

Chair’s Column
Carol Ebdon
School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska-Omaha
The annual American Society for Public Administration (ASPA)
conference was held in Baltimore this past March. We had a good 2011 ABFM
turnout at the ABFM section meeting. Our discussion centered
around the need to strengthen the relationships between Officers & Executives
practitioners and scholars.

In this trying fiscal environment, it is more important than ever Officers

for practitioners to have ready access to research findings and
best practices, yet they have limited time available to read Chair
academic literature. At the same time, scholars are well-served in Carol Ebdon, University of Nebraska-Omaha
their teaching and research by understanding the needs and
concerns of public budget and finance officials. Chair-Elect (2012)
James D. Savage, University of Virginia
Do you have any suggestions for ways that we, as ABFM
members, can work to foster these relationships and Vice Chair (2013)
connections? Perhaps you know of models that have been Scott Pattison, NASBO
successful. Please contact me or Kenneth Hunter if you have
Past Chair (2010)
ideas to share with our members in the next Line Item, on our
Dwight Denison, University of Kentucky
website, or through social media (via Facebook).
Secretary/Archivist
Are you interested in serving on the ABFM Executive Donijo Robbins, Grand Valley State University (MI)
Committee? We will be electing three new members for terms
beginning in January, as well as a Vice-Chair Elect. The Newsletter Editor
nominating committee will send out additional information soon Kenneth Hunter, City of Rocky Mount (NC)
regarding this process.

Nominations will also be solicited in the near future for our three
annual awards: Executive Committee

 The Aaron Wildavsky Award honors lifetime achievement for
work in budgeting and financial management;
 The S. Kenneth Howard Award is for lifetime achievement by
a practitioner in the field; and
 The Michael Curro Award is awarded for the best student
paper nominated by a faculty member.
Please be thinking about individuals that you believe are
deserving of these prestigious awards. The list of past award
winners is posted on our website.
I hope to see many of you at our annual conference in October in
Washington, D.C. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about
current practices, theory, and the latest research findings related
to public budgeting and financial management at all levels of
government and nonprofit organizations. Remember to submit
your proposals for presentations by May 1.
Dr. Ebdon is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Administration
at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where her research and teaching
emphasis is in the area of local government budgeting and financial
management.
2009-2011 Term
Dan Williams, City University of New York
Bill Simonsen, University of Connecticut
Justin Marlowe, University of Washington
2010-2012 Term
Jonathan B. Justice, University of Delaware
Kenneth Hunter, City of Rocky Mount (NC)
M. Peter van der Hoek, Erasmus University (Denmark)
2011-2013 Term
Carolyn Bourdeaux, Georgia State University
Meagan Jordan, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
Eric Scorsone, State of Michigan
ABFM aims to promote the professional development of
budgeting and financial management in the public and non-
profit sectors. Embracing both theoretical and operational
concerns, ABFM addresses issues in budgeting processes
and practice in financial management.

For more information on ABFM, visit our website, www.abfm.org

Line Item, April 2011
Job Announcements & Calls for Papers
ABFM members can post announcements for professional positions and events with their institutions and
agencies. To include an announcement, please forward it to Kenneth Hunter at kenneth.hunter@nclgba.org.
Director, Institute of Government
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) invites
applications or nominations for a twelve-month tenure track
associate or full professor to serve as Director of the Institute of
Government located within the College of Professional Studies.
The position will be available July 1, 2011 and the start date is
negotiable. The Institute of Government (IOG) is committed to
engaging students, faculty and professional staff in making a
difference in central Arkansas and the state through academic
programs, practitioner training, applied research and consulting.
IOG contains a NASPAA- accredited Master’s program in Public
Administration, the Survey Research Center, and the Arkansas
Public Administration Consortium (APAC), a training unit
offering certificate programs for government and nonprofit
leaders. The Institute of Government also contains the Center
for Public Collaboration and the Center for Nonprofit
Organizations that coordinate graduate certificate programs in
Conflict Mediation and Nonprofit Management. The Institute of
Government employs 20 full time faculty and professional staff
members and has a budget of over $1 million per year with a little
over half of institute funds coming from external grants and
contracts.
The MPA program is the largest and longest accredited MPA
program in the state and currently serves 60 students. The Survey
Research Center provides a full range of survey research services
and is the largest not-for-profit survey research organization in the
state. It employs six full-time researchers and twenty-five part-
time telephone interviewers utilizing a CATI system for the 20-
station call center. The Arkansas Public Administration
Consortium offers a nationally accredited Certified Public Manager
training program as well as Arkansas Government Manager and
Certified Volunteer Management certificate programs. It also
provides tailored training for local and county government groups.
Over 1200 government and nonprofit leaders are alumni of APAC
certificate programs. The Institute of Government enjoys close
relationships with state and local government leaders. For more
information about all the programs in the Institute of
Government, consult the Institute webpage at www.ualr.edu/iog/.
The successful candidate should hold a terminal degree, preferably
a Ph.D. in Public Administration or a related field, and have a
strong record of teaching, research, and grant and contract work
with public agencies and nonprofit organizations. He/she should
have administrative experience including budget and personnel
oversight. He/she should be able to demonstrate excellent
communication skills, collaborative leadership, ability to form
relationships with government and nonprofit leaders and
commitment to diversity. Experience in resource development,
accreditation, assessment, and student recruitment and retention
For more information on ABFM, visit our website, www.abfm.org
Page 3
would be preferred. The director should be a credible advocate
and representative of the Institute to campus and external
constituencies.
UALR is a research intensive public urban/metropolitan university
located in the state capital. It enrolls 13,000 students per semester,
including 2500 graduate students. UALR supports a full range of
undergraduate programs, 38 master’s programs, a law degree, and
eight doctoral programs. UALR is part of the University of
Arkansas system. UALR supports neighborhood revitalization
through the University District working with housing, education,
public safety and commercial development in the neighborhoods
surrounding the campus. The College of Professional Studies
includes the School of Social Work, the School of Mass
Communication, the Institute of Government, and departments of
Criminal Justice, Speech Communication and Audiology and
Speech Pathology. A new program that will be housed in the
College and headed by an IOG faculty /research staff member is
the Shepherd Project, an undergraduate minor in poverty studies,
part of a consortium of 11 universities. For more information on
UALR or the College of Professional Studies, see websites at
www.ualr.edu or www.ualr.edu/cps/.
The larger Little Rock area has a population of 500,000 people and
is the state center for government, medicine, commerce and the
arts. It has a low cost of living, a high quality of life, and abundant
recreation opportunities.
To apply, please e-mail a letter of application, a current CV, and
the names and contact information for three professional
references in Word or PDF formats to:
Dr. Angela Laird Brenton,
Dean and Search Committee Chair
albrenton@ualr.edu
Consideration of applications will begin immediately and continue
until the position is filled. Inquiries about the position may be
made to Angela Brenton at 501-569-3244 or albrenton@ualr.edu.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is an equal opportunity,
affirmative action employer and actively seeks the candidacy of minorities,
women, veterans, and persons with disabilities. Under Arkansas law, all
applications are subject to disclosure. Persons hired must have proof of legal
authority to work in the United States.
Line Item, April 2011
Job Announcements & Calls for Papers
ABFM members can post announcements for professional positions and events with their institutions and
agencies. To include an announcement, please forward it to Kenneth Hunter at kenneth.hunter@nclgba.org.
Grand Valley State University
Assistant Professor; School of Public,
Nonprofit & Health Administration
Applicants are required to have earned a doctorate
from an accredited institution by August 2011 in public
administration, philanthropy, nonprofit management or a related
field. Consideration will also be given to those who are ABD, but,
if hired, they will start at the instructor level until the doctorate is
completed. Evidence of prior teaching experience, active
scholarship, and community-based service are also required.
Preference will be given to those that can teach nonprofit finance
and other areas of nonprofit management.
The selected candidate should be prepared to teach graduate and
undergraduate nonprofit management courses. The selected
candidate should demonstrate potential for excellence in
undergraduate and graduate teaching, as well as scholarship and
community-based service, with active research and service
agendas. Salary commensurate with experience.
Please visit www.gvsujobs.org and click *Apply to this Posting.*
Include a letter of application, updated curriculum vitae, and a
one-page research agenda. The online system will allow you to
attach these items electronically. Send three letters of reference,
transcripts, the most recent teaching evaluations (and any other
evidence of teaching excellence) and an example of a recently
published article or a dissertation chapter to the Chair of the
Search Committee:
Salvatore Alaimo
School of Public, Nonprofit & Health Administration
401 W. Fulton St, 250C DEV
Grand Rapids, MI 49504
alaimos@gvsu.edu
(616) 331-6582
If you have any questions about the application process, please call
Human Resources at (616) 331-2215.
The deadline date for filing applications is April 27, 2011.
For more information about Grand Valley, see our website at
www.gvsu.edu.
An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution
For more information on ABFM, visit our website, www.abfm.org
Page 4
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting &
Financial Management (JPBAFM)
Call for Paper Proposals
State/Local Government Fiscal Sustainability
Recently, fiscal sustainability has garnered mounting attention
from both policy-makers and scholars. They have painfully
realized that the structural imbalance between public revenue and
expenditure is embedded in public budgeting policies and is
threatening government’s long-term fiscal health. We are inviting
manuscripts dedicated to the urgent issue of fiscal sustainability at
the state and local level. We encourage participants to address the
issue from various perspectives and explore how to put state-local
governments on a fiscally sustainable path. Both qualitative and
quantitative research will be considered.
Send your paper proposal by May 15, 2011 to Dr. Yuhua Qiao
at yuhuaqiao@missouristate.edu. The proposal should be
about 150 words, highlighting the research question, the
methodology, and possible findings.
All papers will be peer reviewed by three reviewers. One of them
is appointed by the Managing Editor. The manuscript Preparation
Guidelines will be sent to you later. The manuscripts that are
recommended for publication will be published in Journal of Public
Budgeting. Accounting, & Financial Management (JPBAFM). In early
2011, JPBAFM was accepted for inclusion in Elsevier’s Scopus
database following 18 months of a rigorous peer review.
The symposium time table is as follows.
Submission of proposals: May 15, 2011
Acceptance/rejections decision: May 30, 2011
Submission of full papers: Nov. 1, 2011
Paper Review: Dec. 15, 2011
Paper Revision: Jan. 15, 2012
Forum for Economists International
Amsterdam; September 24-25, 2011
Papers in all areas are eligible for presentation and economists
from all areas of specialization are invited to present and discuss
their papers. Papers in the fields of public administration, public
finance and public management are particularly welcome and are
eligible for submission to Public Finance and Management.
Abstracts (maximum 250 words) can be submitted by email to
info@f4ei.org. Submissions must include: 1) name, 2) academic
rank or title, 3) affiliation, 4) e-mail address, 5) category number of
topic (see listing in the Journal of Economic Literature). For more
information, visit www.f4ei.org.
Line Item, April 2011
Special Report
NASPAA Developing Multi-Level Budgeting & Finance Competencies
By Dr. Kurt Thurmaier, Professor & Director, Division of Public Administration, Northern Illinois University, kthur@niu.edu
I am pleased to report that we are ready to
move forward on our quest to develop
recognized competencies in public budgeting,
financial management, and public finance for
NASPAA programs that identify such
specializations. The purpose of this message is
to sound the call for volunteers to serve on
working groups of this important project!
And, as an early advertisement, we are proposing two back-to-back
panels at the October 20-22 NASPAA conference in Kansas City,
one on Budgeting and Financial Management Competencies with a
Federal Government Focus and a roundtable on Budgeting and
Financial Management Competencies with a Focus on States,
Local Governments, and NGOs.
The Section on Public Budgeting and
Financial Management held its inaugural
meeting at the 2010 NASPAA meeting.
What emerged from the discussions at
that meeting was a recognition that we
needed a process that recognized a key tension. We want to have
recognizable competencies for prospective students and
prospective employees. Yet we have a wide array of positions and
competencies required of people in our sector, and it varies by
level of government (and with NGOs), and by general subject
area, such as budgeting, capital finance, public finance, and
financial management.
Within each subject area, we ought to be able to identify general
and specific competencies. For example, local government
budgeting might require the ability to develop and present a
budget document that can win the GFOA Budget Presentation
Award, whereas local government financial management might
require the ability to develop and present a CAFR that can win the
GFOA’s CAFR Award.
There is a wide range of opinions about how general and specific
competencies should be. We will have many discussions to reach
agreement on a set of competencies that provide us (1) with
recognizable competencies that may hold across many (if not all)
of the subfields in our specialization, and (2) a framework that
requires programs to demonstrate that their curriculum helps their
students achieve specific competencies, depending on which
subfields the program delivers.
We are explicitly recognizing that it is unlikely that any program
will deliver competencies in all 16 cells of the matrix. Rather, we
can provide programs with the opportunity to identify which
subfields in the specialization are delivered by a specific
curriculum, and which recognized competencies will they be able
to demonstrate that they deliver for their students. It also follows
that students graduating from a program that delivers a specific set
For more information on ABFM, visit our website, www.abfm.org
Page 5
of competencies in a subfield can present specific credentials to
prospective employers when they graduate (e.g., they have
developed a model CIP for a local government). We expect that
they will also be able to boast of some broad competencies as well,
such as an in-depth understanding of the principles for a forensic
financial audit.
The first step in the process has been to organize working groups
around each of the rows in the matrix. I am pleased to report that
I have secured the services of four highly talented and thoughtful
colleagues who have agreed to chair the working groups for our
project.
Local Government
Carol Ebdon (University of Nebraska-Omaha)
cebdon@mail.uomaha.edu, 402-444-5417
State Government
Bart Hildreth (Georgia State University)
prcwbh@langate.gsu.edu, 404-413-0271
Federal Government
Phil Joyce (University of Maryland-College Park)
pgjoyce@umd.edu, 301-405-4766
NGO
Dwight Denison (University of Kentucky)
dwight.denison@uky.edu, 859-257-5742
The next step of the process is for YOU to volunteer to serve
on one of the working groups. Please contact the working group
chair of your choice to register your willingness to work on the
project. The chairs have agreed to be conveners and coordinators.
They have not signed up to do all the work!
The primary task of each working group is to engage with relevant
practitioners to identify the competencies that students graduating
with a NASPAA degree (MPA/MPP) should have when they
finish a specialization in public budgeting and financial
management. (We may also decide as a section to change the title
of the specialization based on our work, but first things first….)
Your contributions to the working group can include reaching out
in a coordinated fashion to relevant practitioners to help develop
the competencies in your stratum of the matrix. We will schedule
panels and meetings at NASPAA, ABFM, and other relevant
conferences to facilitate discussions among ourselves and with
practitioners. The chairs will be helping me facilitate the process.
Colleagues who indicate a willingness to serve on a group will be
able to help decide the first meetings of the working group. We
expect most work to be done with conference calls.
Thank you for considering to volunteer on a work group. Our
success will depend on all of us working together toward our
common end. I look forward to the rewards of our hard work
ahead.
Line Item, April 2011 Page 6

Upcoming Events
To submit dates and “Call for Papers” announcements,
contact Kenneth Hunter, kenneth.hunter@nclgba.org.
September 21st-24th
2011 Southeastern Conference for
Public Administration (SECoPA)
Hotel Monteleone, New Orleans
Call for Papers announcement soon!
Learn more online, www.aspaonline.org/secopa
September 23rd-24th
Forum for Economists International
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Visit www.f4ei.org for more information
October 13th-15th
23rd ABFM Annual Conference
Washington Marriott, Washington
See cover page to review Call for Papers!
Deadline for proposals is May 1st!
Registration info coming soon online, www.abfm.org
Additional public administration conference dates
and information available at the website for PA
Times, the official newsletter of ASPA. Visit
online, patimes.eznuz.com
FEDERAL FINANCIAL REPORTS
AVAILABLE ONLINE
Each year, the Treasury Department’s Financial
Management Service compiles the Financial Report
of the U.S. Government, which consolidates the
audited, accrual-based financial statements of
federal cabinet departments, other specifically
designated executive branch agencies, and many
independent agencies.
You may be interested in seeing the updated
website for the 2010 Financial Report of the U.S.
Government and the Citizen’s Guide to the report,
both which can be found at http://fms.treas.gov/fr.
There is a link on the website for your comments
and suggestions and another link for questions you might have.
ABFM joins
We are pleased to announce the launch of our first Social Media site.
Show your support by following and share with your colleagues.
Visit the site facebook.com/abfm1 today!

ABFM Secretariat
Grand Valley State University
School of Public, Nonprofit and Health Administration
401 W. Fulton St.
2nd Floor, Bldg. C · DeVos Center
Grand Rapids, MI 49504

For more information on ABFM, visit our website, www.abfm.org