PFA passes on Christmas Spirit through Giving Tree

December 2011: PFA takes part in the Salvation Army Angel Tree program.  PFA's members and leadership team worked together to purchase a full-size bicycle, skateboard, wallet, and football to help make Christmas a little brighter for some of those children less fortunate than us!

Public Finance Lunch in Indianapolis

On Friday, October 28th, we'll be having lunch in downtown Indy with Ann Latrop, current president of the Capital Improvement Board, Chuck Schalliol, former Director of the Indiana Office of Management and Budget and Chief Financial Officer for Indiana, as well as one to two investment managers from the Indiana Public Employees Retirement System (INPERS).

Time: 10:15
Location: 143 West Market Street, Indianapollis (It is a brown, eight story building on the corner of Market and Capitol, and is right across the street from the Statehouse)

Anticipated Agenda:
Introductions (approximately 10 minutes)
Topics (approximately 10 minutes each speaker:

o   Chuck - Recent state and local reforms in Indiana

o   Ann - How has the Indianapolis Capital Improvement Board dealt with recent changes and fiscal stress?

o   Scott Davis (INPERS Investments) - How does Indiana's pension system compare to other states, and are there any measures currently being undertaken to help make the general pension sector more sustainable?
Discussion/Q&A and warp-up (20 minutes or so)

See you there.

FALL - CALL OUT (UPDATED)

Hello Folks,
Public Finance Association will be hosting their Fall Call-Out Meeting and all of you are heartily welcomed. This event will be marked by the presence of both first and second year students thus would be a wonderful opportunity for all of us to share our experiences and get to know each other.
Date: 9/15/2011 i.e., coming Thursday
Location: Yogis Irish Lion
Time: 9:00 PM
Agenda: Fall Call-Out
Reservation:  say "SPEA"

Though I believe that people out there know whereabouts of Yogis Irish Lion but nevertheless I am posting the map indicating Yogis Irish Lion (B) with driving direction from SPEA (A)
See you there.



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Indiana Office of Management and Budget Internship

by Neil Broshears
Second Year MPA, Public Financial Administration

After initially applying and interviewing for the Indiana Governor’s Office Internship Program, I was redirected to a second round of  interviews with Adam Horst, Indiana Budget Director, and Chris Ruhl,  Director of the Indiana Office of Management and Budget.   Shortly thereafter, they brought me on board as an intern in their office.  My responsibilities primary involved assisting Budget Agency tax analysts with the state revenue forecasting process.  I also participated in a number of other interesting and meaningful projects.  I provided Adam with recommendations for improving the Indiana Transparency Portal, an inside look into Indiana State Government spending and operations.  I did some work refining the Indiana Employee Retirement Benefits Account Plan website in hopes of making the website more informative to state employees.  Finally, I aided the Director of Government Efficiency and Financial Planning in establishing and implementing a monitoring plan for American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds going to Indiana Universities.  This included site visits to Notre Dame and Purdue.

I also received the opportunity to leave the office for a number of trips and meetings.  During the beginning of August, I attended an Indiana Budget Committee trip to Ball State University with analysts, legislators and an assortment of Budget Agency officials.  The orchestrator of the Governor’s Office Internship Program was nice enough to also include me in their trips; we visited Camp Atterbury, the Indiana Women’s Prison, the Governor’s Mansion and the State Fairgrounds.  Lastly, Adam also included me in quarterly performance meetings with the directors of most state agencies.

Interestingly enough, my internship also allowed me to meet Governor Mitch Daniels on two occasions, which I found to be, both, exciting and informative!

Interning with Dow

by Evan Sarosi 
I landed a job in Washington DC in the lobbying/government affairs department at The Dow Chemical Company. Most of my work this summer has been related to regulatory reform, trying to amend the Administrative Procedures Act as well as other statutes that regulate the process by which agencies issue rules. The bulk of that work related to two specific projects. The first project required me to create an interactive federal regulatory database that highlights and assesses regulations that have a high impact on Dow. The second project was a Dow position paper detailing Dow's views on what the federal rulemaking process should look like including front-end rulemaking process rights and back-end process rights of judicial reviewability. I also had the opportunity to work outside the regulatory reform sphere in more of a public finance capacity as I was given the paired with Dow’s our head tax lobbyist to provide support in our efforts at tax reform. I attended hearings, drafted memos and proposals, and coordinated stakeholder lobbying efforts into broader coalitions. Obviously the debt ceiling has been hanging over everything and that has a significant public finance focus. As an example, this summer I attended a hearing of the Joint Committee on Taxation (the first full joint committee hearing since the 1940's) to assess the impact that the tax code's preference for debt financing over equity financing has had on over-leveraged financial firms (leading to the financial crisis). I drafted a hearing memo, submitted questions for the record and worked with tax practitioners from different firms to build a business community position with respect to the preferences for debt and equity financing.  The internship proved to be quite a fruitful opportunity and definitely one that I encourage other SPEA students to apply.

Summer Abroad

by Joseph Franzwa

(Continuing with the internship posts, this post is by Joseph Franzwa, who is also a student pursuing his MPA at SPEA and concentrating mainly in public finance.)

This summer I interned at the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) in South Korea and was the Teaching Assistant for the SPEA in Berlin study abroad course. During the SMG Internship, I was placed in the International Cooperation Division where I helped the full time staff write and revise policy reports on international local governments, compared and contrasted Chicago and Seoul’s economic plans, and helped with various other tasks around the office.  This internship has given me a new appreciation for Korean culture and invaluable experience in and foreign local government. As the TA for the SPEA in Berlin course, I helped take students around Berlin, along with Professor Dr. David B. Audretsch, to many governmental site visits, attended lectures from many of Berlin’s top schools and research institutes, and attended a two day joint economic conference between Germany and the US. This course gave me great insight in Germany’s and the United States’ innovation policy, in addition to the European Union’s globalization and public policies.

(Disclaimer: Joseph holds the office of VP, Finance at SPEA PFA)

Ann at Crowe Horwath

by Ann Richardson
(Ann is MPA student at SPEA and had her summer internship at Crowe Horwath and has readily accepted to share her experience with all of us)
As a Government Business Analyst Consultant Intern at Crowe Horwath, LLP, I have the opportunity to work with clients in a wide variety of public agencies to help them determine their needs, define, design, develop, and implement solutions that provide critical value to their organization.  One project I worked on involved a strategic plan and roadmap for a $20 million infrastructure project the State of Indiana is looking to implement.  During the course of the project, I worked with various state officials and analysts from the State’s OMB to develop recommended funding strategies.  
The internship has been an invaluable experience, and the educational knowledge I have gained through SPEA helped me succeed throughout the internship and within Crowe’s organization.  The coursework I studied during my first year at SPEA allowed me to understand how government is like a business, yet with ever-changing restraints and obstacles.  This knowledge allowed me to help the client justify the project based on best public policy practices, and helped me identify funding sources for the infrastructure that are unique to government.  
(Disclaimer: Ann is also the President of SPEA, PFA)