Association of Local Government Auditors

In November, the ALGA Board of Directors and the Committee Chairs had a productive meeting in Tempe, Arizona.  One of the highlights of this meeting was reviewing the results of the recently-completed ALGA Membership Satisfaction Survey.  I extend a big thank you to the Survey Committee and to the 503 participants who took the time to provide this feedback so ALGA can continue to meet the needs of its members.  Although many areas of the survey were discussed, two caught my attention: the most valuable benefit of ALGA membership, and the top two challenges audit shops face.

What is the most valuable benefit of your ALGA membership?

According to the survey, 94% of respondents believe that (1) training, (2) networking, or (3) other information sharing activities are the most valuable benefits of ALGA membership.  While other great ALGA activities were mentioned, such as Peer Review, publications, and the Listserv, it is clear that ALGA's principal value is in bringing local government auditors together to train, learn, and share.  Over the years that I have been involved, I have always considered ALGA a professional, supportive family-and the annual conference a family reunion (complete with some very fun and interesting family members!).  When ALGA members get together, no matter what the occasion, you can always count on two things: meaningful discussions and laughter.  Who would have guessed that auditors could have such a good sense of humor?

I appreciate the Survey Committee's use of "word clouds" to visually represent certain survey responses.  A word cloud is a graphic that gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.  These graphics make it very easy to determine the most common responses.

What are the top two challenges your audit shop will face over the next three years?

As shown in the word cloud that follows, one major challenge outweighs the others: budgets!  Fewer resources and an expanding audit universe have become the standard for most audit shops.  Add in requests for more specialty work (like IT and construction audits) and subtract training dollars needed to maintain CPE, and you have the situation many of us are in.  ALGA Board members and Committee Chairs will carefully review the survey results over the coming months and make changes wherever possible.  Solutions already in place include many opportunities to receive inexpensive CPE through quizzers, webinars, regional trainings, and the annual conference.  In addition, easy access to an inexpensive, high-quality peer review program continues to be highly regarded by audit shops with tight budgets.