During my years on the board, I’ve heard many discussions about the acronym for our wonderful organization. We’ve all heard many of the comments, and it seemed that we weren’t going to stop hearing them unless we addressed the issue directly. So I asked a few of our members to serve as a task force to review the pros and cons of changing the name and make a recommendation to the board. Because the name is established in our Constitution and Bylaws, the board makes a recommendation to the members and any change must be approved by a vote of two-thirds of the voting members attending the annual meeting, which is always on the second morning of our annual conference.

• The Charter members established “the Association of Local Government Auditors” at the first meeting in Philadelphia on June 15, 1989.
• In April 1998, the Constitution and Bylaws were changed in “recognition of worldwide interest/participation of the organization,” and to recognize our objective to bring together local government professionals “from around the world.”
• Almost 8 percent of our membership is from outside the United States, including 20 member organizations from Canada.
• N.A.L.G.A. is sufficiently established to withstand a name change. As the recognized “spokesperson” for the local government auditing profession, standard setting bodies and other professional organizations, such as GAO, AICPA, IIA, AGA, and GASB, often solicit our input regarding issues impacting local government auditors.
• Other organizations have become stronger as a result of a name change. Specifically, the MFOA’s membership grew significantly after it changed its name to GFOA, which more closely represented its organizational mission.
• In our recent member survey, 79 percent of the respondents supported changing N.A.L.G.A.’s name and responded favorably to the name, “Association of Local Government Auditors.”

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