Professor Elam

The last job that Ms. Fastow had at Enron was Art Collector, she had formerly been a tax preparer, and preparing false returns sent her to jail in downtown Houston for one year.  It is important to remember that for a public company, the statements are public!  Atmos Energy  was reminded of that this week as a public watchdog group growled and bit at some of their expenses.  Atmos symbol ATO is seeking a rate hike from the Public Utility Commission PUC that would raise home bills about $4 per month. The watchdog group decries $75,000 worth of artwork, expensive meals, and a trip to the Bush Inauguration as unnecessary. In fact they have proposed cutting expenses and therefore utility bills of customers. 

Read the article at the hyper link.  Could you use your knowledge of accounting to defend the company and get the rate hike?  Conversely, are these expenses so out of line as to deny Atmos the rate hike?  Which camp would you find yourself in?  You can bet that both camps have relied on folks with extensive accounting knowledge to examine the statements and make their case.

A tip of the bloggin hat to my better half, Christy pictured here with out late Shar Pei, Chocolate.  Christy brought Atmos and CCU to me attention. She was also instrumental in my including Final Accounting by Barb Toffler as required reading for the Audit Class. She also highly recommends The Smartest Guys in the Room, the Enron story which was made into a documentary, now available in video.

DLE