SLGSafe Insights
Volume 2, Issue 1 – June 2004
Feature Article
2004 SLGS Forum A Success
The 2004 SLGS Forum was held April 13-14 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The event was hosted by National City Bank. Bureau personnel, issuers, financial advisors, and banks that offer fiduciary and corporate trust services attended the event.
The agenda included discussions of IRS arbitrage rulings, SLGS regulations, and the set-up of a SLGS deal. Cliff Gannett of the Internal Revenue Service's Tax Exempt Bonds Office offered examples of acceptable arbitrage and contrasted them with arbitrage situations that the IRS would question.
Steve Watson of Treasury's Office of Tax Policy spoke about SLGS regulations. Damian Maggos of City Securities, Dan Kramer of Crowe Chisek, and Jane Herndon of Ice Miller provided a great joint presentation on how they go about setting up a SLGS deal. All speakers provided us with very useful information. Thomas Peterson, also of Ice Miller, gave an entertaining talk on the not-so-entertaining Quality Zone Academy Bonds (QZAB).
The second day was spent discussing SLGSafe, the Bureau's secure Internet site that allows you to subscribe, cancel, and update your SLGS subscription, as well as, many other features. After a brief training class for new users, Tonya Hill, SLGSafe coordinator, gave a presentation on a new feature in SLGSafe. The new feature allows your SLGSafe users to be divided into regions, such as geographic regions. This will limit what subscriptions and cases a user can see. If the user is assigned to Region 1 and a subscription is entered from a user assigned to Region 2, the user in Region 1 cannot see it in SLGSafe. While regions are a good idea if you are concerned about users making changes to subscriptions that they have no interest in, be advised that if your organization is divided into regions, the reports from SLGSafe will also be divided into regions. In other words, you will not be able to see a complete payment report for your organization. So, if your operations area depends on a payment report with totals for the entire organization, regions may not be the best idea for you.
Crystal Hanna and Scott Fortney of the Office of Public Debt Accounting spoke briefly about the development of a new SLGSafe. They are currently collecting information and writing requirements for an improved SLGSafe. If you have any suggestions or would like to be included on the user's panel for the development of the new SLGSafe, contact Crystal Hanna at crystal.hanna@bpd.treas.gov.
Howard Stevens ended the Forum with a presentation on the SLGSafe Customer Service Survey that we conducted last fall. Overall, the results were positive and we were encouraged by your satisfaction and usefulness of SLGSafe to you. The final discussion of the day was about SLGSafe system improvements and enhancements. While most of those are on hold pending the development of the new system, we still had a lively discussion. As always, we welcome your suggestions.
The Bureau would like to thank all of you who attended the SLGS Forum this year. We appreciate the time and effort you put in to attend. We would especially like to thank National City Bank for their hard work helping us to put the Forum together and make it a success.
Additional Resources for Special Investments Branch
The Office of Public Debt Accounting is pleased to announce the appointment of Matt Smargiasso as the new manager of the Special Investments Branch (SIB), effective May 16, 2004. Matt has extensive experience in government securities processing and has been with the Bureau of the Public Debt for almost 9 years. Matt recently attended the SLGS Forum, and enjoyed talking to the attendees and getting to know the business of SLGS.
Correspondence should be addressed to Matt Smargiasso at the same address used for SIB (P.O. Box 396, Parkersburg, WV 26101), or you can email Matt at matt.smargiasso@bpd.treas.gov.
For those of you who have developed a relationship with Howard Stevens over the years, have no fear, Howard is still with us. Howard has accepted a new position in our front office. He will be serving the SLGS program in an advisory capacity.
Other changes in SIB include the addition of Adam Tucci. Adam is a staff accountant who will be working with Matt in the manager's office.
Please join us in welcoming Matt and Adam to SIB. We also want to thank Howard for his excellent leadership and the knowledge that he shared with us in the SLGS program for over 10 years.
How Do I fill out these forms?
- Do you have a 4144-5, Application for SLGSafe Access, facing you with no earthly idea how to fill it out? Lucky for you, SIB has instructions detailing how to fill out this form, as well as, the 4144-6 (User Acknowledgment) and 4144-7 (Template). That page can be found on our website, www.slgs.gov. Click on the SLGSafe Home Page link. Once you are on the SLGSafe Home Page, the instructions page can be found in the "SLGSafe Application for Internet Access" paragraph. Also, all SLGS forms are fillable. By opening the form in its PDF version, you can fill in the information on your computer screen. Just make sure to print the forms and include original signatures before you send them to us.
SLGSafe Power Tips
Each newsletter we will give you tips on how to use SLGSafe.
- The SLGS daily rate table is available in a downloadable format. Go to www.slgs.gov and click on choice number 1, Delimited Format, for the rate table. You will be directed to a page that explains how the file works. Then you can pick the rate table you want and download to the file of your choice.
Coming Events
- GFOA Conference: Visit us in Milwaukee
Stop by and visit us in Booth 138 at the 98th Annual Government Finance Officer's Association (GFOA) conference June 13-16, 2004 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Howard, Sue and Tonya will be there to demonstrate how SLGSafe will streamline your SLGS purchases. We look forward to seeing you there. Who knows? You may even leave with a free gift! - Calling all Sponsors!
If your organization would be interested in hosting the next SLGS Forum, please contact Sue Harlow at sue.harlow@bpd.treas.gov. We will work with you to determine the best time and place for the event. Your participation and cooperation is appreciated. Don't worry; Sue does most of the work!
