GASB 87 implementation date for municipalities
The new lease accounting standard, GASB 87, is meant to boost the usefulness of financial statements for stakeholders — the standard increases required lease reporting by entities. The biggest change with GASB 87 is that nearly all leases will be reported on the financial statements. There's no longer a distinction between operating and financial (or capital) leases.
The official implementation date for GASB 87 was June 15, 2021. When governments need to adhere to this new standard depends on their fiscal year start dates. For entities with a reporting period starting after June 15, 2021, their implementation date will be whenever their next fiscal year begins.
For governments with a fiscal year that begins July 1, the official implementation date was July 1, 2021. Thus, they presented financials that adhered to GASB 87 for the first time when their 2022 fiscal year ended June 30, 2022. Note that in the application, the “GASB 87 Implementation Date” will reflect the last day of the fiscal year GASB 87 was implemented – June 30, 2022 in this example.
For pretty much all governments that adhere to Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB) accounting standards, the creation of financial statements based on GASB 87 started with fiscal year 2022. If an entity presents the current fiscal year financials, as well as the previous year or two for comparative purposes, they'll need to restate the financial statements for the previous year(s).
GASB 87 was to be effective as of Dec. 15, 2019, per Statement No. 87 issued in June 2017. However, Statement No. 95 delayed the start date to June 15, 2021.
Example:
A municipality that adheres to GASB presents its 2022 fiscal year results, as well as its fiscal year 2021 for comparative purposes, to stakeholders. Its fiscal year starts on July 1; thus, it has a GASB 87 implementation date of July 1, 2021, and it presents its fiscal 2022 according to the new lease standard. But it must also restate financials for fiscal year 2021 — July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021, period — as if GASB 87 was in effect for that year.
What’s important here?
Almost all municipalities will implement GASB 87 on their financials, starting with the date they present their fiscal 2022 financial statements. Most entities will present GASB 87-adhering financials for their fiscal year starting July 1, 2021 or later, but will have to restate financials for previous years if they’re presented for comparative purposes.
