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Fletcher & Fletcher Fall Newsletter
Fall Quarterly
November 2011
In This Issue
Federal IT Management Reform
Budget Application Improvements
Engage! Provide Feedback
U.S. National Budget News
Federal IT Management Reform
  The Federal Government is in the midst of a process to transition to adopting light technologies and sharing application solutions. The goal is to integrate systems to improve operational inefficiencies. 

  This process includes 25 separate steps to help reach the program goals. Most of these steps include adopting best IT practices such as moving to virtual servers, strengthening project management teams on the client side, streamlining the governance of IT agencies and increasing engagement with private sector teams.  

  Many of the steps being taken are best practices that should be utilized by local governments to improve software purchase and implementation strategies. These principles are very important for departments to consider when investigating the implementation of new budget software available on the market. By being aware of and planning for new budget software with these principles in mind, departments can ensure the implementation cycle will be shortened while operational needs are kept as top priorities. Keeping this principles in mind can also help with the vendor selection process by ensuring the vendors selected are in touch with best IT practices. 

  This document is a must for any budget managers, project managers, purchasing manager or IT staff interested in ensuring that future software implementations are forward-thinking. Too often future software support can run into problems because they did not take into account how IT operations would need to transition in the future. Please take the time to review the document and see what practices you might expect to be implemented at your site in future years.

Program PDF

Budget Application Improvements
  After reviewing suggestions for tool improvements from our clients, we are making a large amount of improvements to our application. Our project team expects to finish these additions before the end of the year. 
   
The goal of these improvements is to improve the user interface for basic budget users. We have improved the application navigation so users can make more edits to items within a single page. This will reduce the amount of training required, reduce the number of clicks needed to manipulate the budget and allow for improved budget analysis. Some of the tools to be added include:

  • Improved Popup Windows - add new accounts and line items from a single page
  • Report Writing - adding SQL Reporting Services to allow users to create their own budget reports in addition to our standard Crystal Report offering
  • Excel Integration - allow users to pull data from the database into excel, manipulate and analyze data and push the data back into the database
  • Record Flagging System - allows users to flag records for some reason and explain why they have been flagged
  • Improved Administrative Tables Navigation - allows for users to make changes to back-end calculations from a single page
  • Report Security - restricts data access within reports to the data the user is restricted to access within the application
   Use the "Contact Us" link on the right to schedule a demonstration with our team. Take a look at the new improvements to view how your team can improve your budget process efficiency.
 
Engage! Provide Feedback
   Our team wants to know what tools you want in your budget software! Please click the "Contact Us" link and let us know what you have always wanted to be able to do to make your life easier.
U.S. National Budget News
  News articles provided by NASBO and other sources:

 

State tax haul jumps 10.8% (October 27)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203554104577000052370994234.html

 

States may lose big in jobs, funds if Medicaid cut (October 26)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/26/us-states-medicaid-idUSTRE79P7UU20111026

 

U.S. state tax collections show sustained recovery (October 26)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-26/u-s-state-revenue-rises-6-8-in-july-august-study-finds.html

 

College prices up again as states slash budgets (October 26)

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16026/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=3dZKXg2u

 

Nearly half of states link teacher evaluations to tests (October 26)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203911804576653542137785186.html?mod=ITP_pageone_1

 

Why layoff notices from states are more common than layoffs (October 25)

http://stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=608792

 

Schools fear worst budget cuts ahead (October 24)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hqL1TKak2aZAnByAQdja2ecv3jyQ?docId=f29d65254a7c44ff8344f479b82ddf5f

 

Debt of states over $4 trillion: budget group (October 24)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/us-usa-states-debt-idUSTRE79N5RX20111024

 

Federal transportation funding mandates - the coming Capitol Hill battle (October 24)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/next-capitol-hill-battle-federal-transportation-funding-mandates/2011/10/14/gIQAR3LpDM_story.html?hpid=z9

 

Government job losses a growing drag on recovery (October 24)

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_dLPYwqhcJT75_ZtE3ryyPI7txg?docId=426c4b3591864ee1ad99cc2d0d36f808

 

Harrisburg failure shows states quick to take control (October 24)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-24/harrisburg-receivership-bill-shows-states-becoming-faster-to-seize-control.html

 

More states limiting Medicaid hospital stays (October 23)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-10-23/states-limit-medicaid-hospital-stays/50886398/1

 

Partnerships to keep threatened state parks open (October 23)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-23/save-state-parks-closure/50885076/1

 

States retool food stamp, benefits systems (October 21)

http://www.stateline.org/live/printable/story?contentId=608152

 

Growing prison populations hinder budget cuts (October 20)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-10-20/prison-life-sentence-budget/50846828/1


 
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