In our latest analysis of the financial condition of Connecticut, we concluded that the state continues to shoulder one of the highest TIA “Taxpayer Burdens” in the nation. There has been little improvement in Connecticut in recent years, despite the recovery in financial markets and the boost that can provide for the funding of pension plans.
We also note another area where Connecticut hasn’t shown a lot of improvement, while other states have. That is in the timeliness with which the state produces its audited “comprehensive annual financial report.”
The chart below shows the number of days after fiscal year-end that Connecticut took to produce its annual financial report, compared to the average for the other states. Connecticut has been taking significantly longer than the national average, and hasn’t shown any improvement in recent years on this score, either.
Citizens in Connecticut have to wait two-thirds of a year to get the results for the latest year. Citizens aren’t the only ones who have to wait this long – so do the legislators and governor, even as they deliberate over fiscal affairs.
And looking over the 50 states, we see that states that are slow in producing their annual report also tend to be states with weaker financial conditions. Connecticut is not an exception that proves the rule.
Correlation is not causation, they say, but these results are ironically arriving in a state that serves as the home of the Financial Accounting Foundation, the parent organization for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).