Well, I did it. I am in Kabul, Afghanistan helping to setup internal audit programs in various government ministries. I am working for a consulting firm known for doing this type of work, and I knew some of their staff when I was in Iraq. I will be here 12 months. Naturally, of course, just after I left on May 19th, I got email weather notices that there were tornado, then flood warnings for Tavares.
So, already I have found out some interesting things. The US Government has programs to assist the Afghanistan government in improving accounting and budgeting, and a colleague is rolling out program budgets for the different ministries here.
That is interesting because neither the Lake County School District or County have the more modern program budgeting that includes performance benchmarks for various departments. Instead, if you look at the detailed budgets from either Lake County agency, they are still using the kindergarten level line item budgets that don't measure or show productivity, efficiency or effectivenes. Basically, Lake county administrators only look at whether the annual budget approved by the elected officials has been exceeded or not.
So, it seems Afghanistan will soon have more modern government reporting systems than Lake County, and possibly other Florida agencies.
The colleague rolling this program budget out was high in Finance in the State of Minnesota, and then has done this for US government foreign aid programs in several countries.
Gee, maybe I will get his book on program budgeting and send it to Lake County elected officials and administrators!
Ok, you Orlando Magic fans might want to know there is another Magic fanatic in my boarding house, and he gets up a 4am to watch their games on the local satellite tv.
Cheers,
vj in Kabul - 9.5 hours ahead of Florida time.
