About GovGlider

GovGlider exists to lower the cost of public finance compliance in California, so that more of every agency's budget goes to local programs and less goes to translating, reconciling, and re-explaining the same numbers every year.

It does three things:

• Publishes a common standard. The California Agency Chart of Accounts (CACOA) is a free, open chart of accounts with the State Controller's Financial Transactions Report mapped into it in advance.
• Explains the rules in plain English. Weekly briefings cover GASB standards, state reporting, pensions, and audits: what they require, why, and what they mean in practice for a small finance office.
• Writes down the routines. Routines describe the work every agency repeats, step by step, so it can be done the same way everywhere and handed from one person to the next without starting over.

Independence

GovGlider is free and independent.

• It carries no advertising and no sponsorships, and it sells nothing.
• It is not a marketing channel for any firm, vendor, or product.
• Nothing on the site names, describes, or can be traced to any specific agency. Examples are composites or invented, with round illustrative numbers. An automated check blocks publication of anything that could identify an agency, a person, or an engagement.
• The site counts visits, downloads, and searches as daily totals, without cookies or keeping IP addresses, only to decide what to build next. See Privacy.
• The CACOA is published under the MIT License. Anyone may use it, change it, and share it, including software vendors and consultants.

GovGlider advocates for common standards even where that reduces the need for paid compliance work, including the kind of work its founder does. That is the point.

Who is behind it

GovGlider was founded and is maintained by Patrick Chaffee, a governmental accountant who works with California cities and special districts on year-end close, audits, and state reporting. The routines and briefings come from that work, generalized so they apply to any agency.

Standards for what is published

• Sources. Statements about requirements cite the standard, statute, or agency instruction they come from, and link to it where a public copy exists.
• Plain English. Every briefing is written for a finance director who has ten minutes, not for a textbook.
• Accuracy first. Requirements change. Dates and thresholds are checked against the current instructions. Briefings carry their publication date, and routines show when they were last reviewed.
• Corrections. Errors are corrected in place, and material corrections are noted at the end of the page.

What GovGlider is not

GovGlider is general information for public finance professionals. It is not accounting, legal, or audit advice for a particular situation, and it does not replace an agency's auditor, legal counsel, or the State Controller's own instructions.