GASB 34 Fixed Asset & Infrastructure Inventory & Valuation

Earth Tech performed GASB 34 compliance consulting services for the city's fixed assets and infrastructure. This work involved the development of a complete, accurate inventory of the city's fixed assets and infrastructure, conducting a condition assessment analysis of all inventoried assets, and valuing those assets based on their condition. The fixed-asset and infrastructure portions of the GASB 34 compliance process is key to the city's ability to maintain high bond ratings and also provides an avenue to track the expenditure of O&M dollars invested in city-owned assets annually.

Commerce City is a rapidly growing suburb in the northeast corner of the Denver metropolitan area, and is undergoing a change from a heavily industrialized area to a mixed economy, with light commercial activity and mid- and upscale housing developments. The city is classified as a Phase II entity under GASB 34 definitions, but its rapid growth and limited municipal funds persuaded city officials to implement the retroactive reporting requirements concurrent with the current reporting so as to enable better management of the city and to maximize use of municipal resources.

Earth Tech's services included:

Data gathering for full identification of capital assets consistent with accounting reporting standards
Database development to fill in missing and incomplete records
Addition of infrastructure assets to the database
Condition assessment on existing assets
Identification of one-time capital projects required to bring specific assets to acceptable standards
Determination of the value of existing assets
Identification of current maintenance costs
Establishment of recommended maintenance level expenditures
Identification of infrastructure reporting approach by subsystem (depreciation or modified)
Report generation for GASB 34-compliant audit

The results were presented at the 2002 National Convention of the Government Financial Officers Association.