Quarterly President's Message Of the Auditors, By the Auditors, For the Auditors - Spring 2010
| Of the Auditors, By the Auditors, For the Auditors - Spring 2010 | | Print | |
| Written by ALGA Webmaster |
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What do you think of when you think of ALGA, the Association of Local Government Auditors? Professional ties? Networking with peers? Relevant, low-cost training? Affordable peer reviews? I think of each of these and more. ALGA committees have been working hard to promote the value and future of local government auditing, advocate for our members' interests, and provide the resources and tools local government auditors need - especially when budgets are tight. ALGA understands the challenges facing local government auditors because we are local government auditors and most of us work in small shops. More than 60% of ALGA's organizational members are audit shops with five auditors or fewer; 31% are one or two person shops ALGA designed programs to target specific professional development needs identified by you - our members - and provides many opportunities for networking and sharing information. Nearly 1,400 local government auditors from more than 200 audit organizations attended ALGA annual conferences or regional training in the last five years. ALGA is invested in technology and building relationships to provide more opportunities for distance learning. Auditors from 67 organizations tuned into audio-conferences in the last year. We've taped live training sessions, which will soon be available to our members on the website, and are developing new continuing education programs ALGA conducted 123 peer reviews of member organizations in the last five years. At an average cost of $3,046 per review, our member organizations save thousands of dollars compared to what they would pay other reviewers. We work to keep costs affordable for small shops. The average cost of a peer review for a one to two auditor organization was just under $1,500 and the average cost of a peer review for a three to fi ve auditor organization was just under $2,350. And it's more than just low-cost - ALGA reviews are high-quality. More than 97% of our ALGA member organizations that underwent peer review rated their experience as very good or good. ALGA represented members' interests through comments on other organization's policy exposure draft s and by communicating with state and federal auditors and representatives of federal agencies including the Office of Management and Budget and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to represent the needs of local government auditors. ALGA compiled an online index of resources including audit abstracts, links to other professional organizations, audit-related topics of special interest, a member directory, an online discussion forum, and various guides and reports ALGA provides a quarterly professional publication, the Local Government Auditing Quarterly, an important forum for sharing information through topical articles submitted by members. Our association is tailored to the needs of local government auditors and we take our role seriously to provide these and many other services to our members. We appreciate feedback we received from our Member Survey last fall. Committees are reviewing the results and identifying ways to continue to meet your needs. Feel free to talk to me or any of ALGA's many volunteers about your ideas on how ALGA can better help you to do your job. We know times are tough. Training and membership budgets are oft en among the first to be slashed. But please take a minute to reflect on the value you receive from ALGA - ranging from the low-cost, high-quality training we provide nationally and regionally, to the continuing value of our efforts advocating for auditing, to the resources and professional networks available to our members. I'm sure you'll agree that ALGA presents real value for our profession.
Amanda Noble |
