City of Grand Rapids issued the following announcement on Jan 10.
The City of Grand Rapids has achieved the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) “Distinguished Budget Presentation Award” for its FY2022 Fiscal Plan. This marks the 34th consecutive year the City has received this prestigious award.
“The award represents a significant achievement and reflects the commitment of the Grand Rapids City Commission, City Manager and staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting,” Chris Morrill, GFOA executive director/CEO, wrote in his award notification letter. “In order to receive the budget award, the City of Grand Rapids had to satisfy nationally recognized and revised guidelines for effective budget presentation.”
The GFOA guidelines are designed to assess how well an entity's budget serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device. Budget documents must be rated "proficient" in all four categories, and in the fourteen mandatory criteria within those categories, to receive the award.
Molly Clarin, Grand Rapids’ chief financial officer, said her office has taken steps in recent years to make the presentation more transparent, easier to understand and more engaging. Additional pictures, charts, visuals, and links to external documents, websites and videos all help enhance the readability of the document and support the budget data.
“The GFOA no longer wants cities simply sharing numbers in budget books,” Clarin said. “Instead, they want to see how our numbers link to our strategic plan and our process for making decisions about spending taxpayer dollars. We also scored points as we included a variety of performance measures that will be used to judge whether our budget is meeting its goals.”
Clarin said GFOA’s annual review of the City’s FY22 Fiscal Plan contained a variety of high marks –possibly the first time it earned all “proficient” or “outstanding” marks. GFOA’s annual budget review also included the following praise from its judges:
- The budget looks good and is easy to follow. Nice job!
- The budget document was organized and structured in a way that made it understandable and usable for the reader. The document was well designed and easy for the reader to understand.
- The staff should be commended for a strong document...
- Outstanding. The “Budget 101” video and links to social media and new sources are a nice touch.
- This is a very informative document. You have done a great job with your strategic planning and creating outline that will help you achieve your goals... you have provided your stakeholders with a great resource that is easy to understand.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Grand Rapids
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