During the recent Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) Annual

Conference in Washington D.C. from June 29 through July 2, we had the opportunity to

videotape eight attendees speaking forthrightly about their areas of expertise, and we’ll

be posting the weekly. The first installment featured Lunda Asmani, Chief Financial

Officer for Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut and the new president of the GFOA.

This week, we visit with Liz Farmer, officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts. Farmer has

been a long-time observer of state and local fiscal issues and focuses in this video on

the impact on cities and states of the prolonged budget sessions, federal funding

uncertainty, slowing revenue growth and rising costs exacerbated by inflation.

She points to the fact that cities are having particular difficulty in dealing with these

issues because states often balance their budgets by cutting back on aid to cities and

localities have limited control over the types of taxes they can levy, with states often

imposing tax and expenditure limits particularly on property taxes.