Government Finance Review

Recently, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued a new standard that fundamentally changes how state and local governments account for the cost of pension benefits in their financial statements. The GFOA’s new publication An Elected Official’s Guide: The New Pension Accounting uses a simple question-and-answer format to explain the “new pension accounting” in a way that is designed to be easily understandable even for those with little, if any, experience or background in accounting and financial reporting for pensions.