WASHINGTON — After years of painful service cuts and devastating bankruptcies, culminating in the financial collapse of Detroit, state and local governments are being urged to stop using budget gimmicks that obscure the true extent of their money problems.

On Tuesday, the State Budget Crisis Task Force released its final report, calling for an end to the longstanding practice of using one-offs and opaque accounting methods that make budgets appear balanced even when fiscal problems are worsening. The task force was led by a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul A. Volcker, and a former New York lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch, who have warned that states and cities have deep structural problems that will not go away just because the country is coming out of the recession that started in 2008.  Read more