Instructions:

Baruch College $$ City University of New York ACC $4100$ Spring $2024$

Final Writing Assignment

This individual writing assignment requires responding to two independent questions in the form of a business memorandum.

$$ Responding to both questions $($all parts$)$ is mandatory.

$$ Each memo should be a maximum of two pages, single$-$spaced, Times New Roman, $12$

points, $1$ inch margin. Submitting as a Microsoft Word file is strongly preferred.

$$You may consult whatever reference materials you like; but, you must work independently $($the only exception is receiving support from the Baruch Writing Center

on language and organization, but not content, of the memos$).$

$$ Should you use generative AI$,$ such as ChatGPT, please clearly indicate this in your memo

$($just like you would do with any other resource used for the analysis$).$ Failure to do so will be treated as plagiarism.

Upon graduating from the Accounting Program at Baruch College, you are hired by the administrative office of the township of Placid Lake, NY$.$ The township has a new mayor who enjoys stating they are $$not good with numbers.$$ The new mayor, however, appreciates the importance of understanding the town$$s financial position $$ among others, they have made a lot of expensive promises while campaigning and would like to understand how they can honor them.

The mayor has been given four statements $$ the government$-$wide statement of net assets, the government$-$wide statement of activities, the balance sheet for the General Fund, and the statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in the fund balances of the General Fund. They request your help with the following:

$1.$ The mayor has noticed that sometimes the expenses on one statement equal the expenditures on another. What is the difference between expenses and expenditures in the provided statements and why do they $($only$)$ sometimes equal each other?

$2.$ The mayor also has noticed that assets minus liabilities equals net assets on one statement, but assets minus liabilities equals the fund balance on another. How can this be$?$ Shouldn$$t they be the same? What is the difference between the two? Please explain.

$3.$ The total fund balance seems to have increased in the past year, but total net assets decreased. How could this happen?

$4.$ The mayor decides they don$$t want to look at all four statements and want to know which one they should look at to figure out how much they can spend on their campaign promises. What is your recommendation and why?

Note: The mayor has never taken an accounting course and does not understand journal entries, so please do not include any in your memo.

Question $2$

You are attending an exhibit of an up$-$and$-$coming artist. Upon hearing you have recently graduated from the Accounting Program at Baruch College, the host approaches you with a question on art donations. In particular, the host relates that the artist is considering donating some of their work but has heard from friends that sometimes art donated to private not$-$for$-$profits is not reported as an asset. The artist, thus, is concerned that if they donate to their favorite private not$-$for profit, their donation would be meaningless. As an alternative, the artist is considering donating artwork to the local government for display in the town library.

The host retains you for a consulting assignment. Specifically, they request a business memo addressing the following questions:

$1.$ How do private not$-$for$-$profits account for donated artwork?

$2.$ How do governmental organizations account for donated artwork $($please distinguish

between the treatment in the government$-$wide financial statements versus the

governmental fund statements$)?$

$3.$ Based on your research, should the artist donate to their favorite not$-$for$-$profit or to the

local government $($in either case, the artist will require that the donated artwork be kept by the recipient rather than sold$)?$