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Compensated absence are absences in which employees will pay, such as vacation, sick leave, and sabbatical leave (GASBS 16, as amended by GASBS 34, and GASBS 35). It all applied to all state and local governments, including public benefit corporations, and authorities, public employee retirement systems, government utilities, governmental hospitals, and other healthcare providers, and administrative colleges and universities.
In the City of Tampa, the vacation pays accrued when earned in the governmental-wide financial statements and proprietary fund financial statements, and when they have matured in the governmental fund financial statements. The part of sick leave that is payable at retirement accrued when vested, or for those employees for whom it expected to vest, in the government-wide and proprietary fund financial statements and when matured in the governmental fund financial statements. Additionally, city employees can earn vacation leave and sick leave at the rate of 1.9 hours per week, and vacation is fully vested when made. However, sick leave may vest after ten years of service with the city. On the other hand, accumulated vacation leave should not exceed 30 days at the end of the calendar year, and any leftover is transferable to sick leave on which there is no limitation as to accumulated amounts (City of Tampa-CAFR, 2018, para. 91).
Technically, bonds are loans that the issuer receives from the bondholder or bond’s buyer. The government uses it primarily to finance social projects and activities, although sometimes they are used to have an impact on inflationary processes. For example, when economic growth is slower than demand, the phenomenon of deflation occurs. This implies excess currency in circulation and prices tend to rise. Through bond issuance the government can reduce excess money in the market and have an impact on inflation. The issuance of these bonds has a cost for the government, which must pay the interest periodically until final maturity. Bonds are financial instruments so they could be traded in the market. When a bond is issued by the government, its original value is called the nominal value. However, if a bondholder resells it in the market at a price higher than its nominal value then the bond becomes a premium bond. If, on the other hand, the sale price in the secondary market is less than its nominal value, then it will be a discount bond (Russo, 2019).According to GASB, the financial statements under the scope of this standard require two disclosures for outstanding debts:
1- Notes on changes during the reporting period in the amount of outstanding debt must be reported. This is regulated by Statement No. 34. (GASB, 1999)
2- Statement No. 38 states that disclosures on debt service obligations are required to be reported for the subsequent five fiscal years and in five year increments thereafter until maturity. (GASB, 2001)
In 2015 GASB started a project to determine if the disclosures required “are sufficiently meeting the need for debt information for making decisions and assessing accountability.” (GASB, 2015) The investigation should be provide to the board an overview in order to determine if new standards are required to be issue.
