Accounting students win national government case competition
Accounting students win national government case competition
Auburn University at Montgomery students Matthew McKinney, Yumani Shabazz and Elisabeth Tucker recently won the Association of Government Accountants’ 2018 Fall Government Case Challenge.
While several student teams from AUM have turned in strong performances in similar competitions in the past, McKinney, Shabazz and Tucker became the first to win a national case competition. The three students each earned $1,000 scholarships for their victory.
“The bigger gain is their work is being exposed to over 15,000 government financial management professionals,” said accounting professor Keren Deal, who mentored the group.
Student teams analyzed data for a specific U.S. state, city or county government and developed a Citizen-Centric Report (CCR). The AUM team’s CCR, which focused on the city of Morgantown, WV, will be used on the city’s website and distributed to local residents. The report, which focused on the 2017 fiscal year, included a city profile, key measures, financial data and an outline of future plans for the city, including the creation of public-private partnerships, improvement of municipal services and recreation opportunities, airport expansion and modifications to traffic flow.
Submissions were evaluated by a panel of government finance experts. McKinney, Shabazz and Tucker included a video as part of their presentation. According to AGA, the competition challenges “students’ moral reasoning, raises their awareness of the importance of accountability and opens doors to a career in government.”
