Illinois's method does not appear to comply with current governmental accounting standards, but governmental accounting rules are voluntary.
Weaknesses in governmental accounting were making the accumulating shortfalls hard to see.
"The Democrats say that 35 years of accounting, governmental accounting, doesn't prepare me for this job," he said.
The foundation is the nonprofit parent of both the governmental accounting board and its sister, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which writes the accounting rules for companies.
Mr. Levitt also questioned the way the governmental accounting rule-makers are chosen, saying he thought the trustees of the board should be named by the S.E.C.
He blamed a rule-making framework that allows softer accounting standards for governments than for corporations, and called for the repeal of the Tower Amendment, a 30-year-old law that limits the S.E.C.'s authority to police governmental accounting.
With no agency to back it up, the governmental accounting board must rely on elected or appointed officials to follow its rules and on their outside auditors and credit analysts to catch any errors.
However, the state keeps its intra-governmental accounts at the accounting rate of 1 CUC to 1 CUP.
That toll is far higher than the nearly 115,000 violent civilian deaths reported by the British-based group Iraq Body Count, which bases its tally on media reports, hospital and morgue records, and official and non-governmental accounts.
At present, it's impossible to determine whether such a firm is profitable or not because intra-governmental accounting distorts the picture.
Governmental accountants sometimes refer to the accrual basis as "full accrual" to distinguish it from modified accrual basis accounting.
