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ARDEN HILLS CITY COUNCIL — July, 11, 2011 2.B. GFOA Financial Awards and Presentation (continued) Budget and Financial reporting. The Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting or CAFR award is for entities whose Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) achieves the highest standards in government accounting and financial reporting. This is Arden Hills' financial statement. The Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Annual Financial Reporting, or PAFR, is given to entities who publish a Popular Annual Report (PAFR), whose contents conform to program standards of creativity, presentation, understandability and reader appeal. This report is primarily for the "non- finance" person in an easy to understand format. The City sends this report out annually in its newsletter. The Distinguished Budget Presentation Award represents a significant achievement by the entity. It reflects the commitment of the governing body and staff to meet the highest principles of governmental budgeting. In order to receive the budget award, the entity had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation. These guidelines are designed to assess how well an entity's budget serves as a policy document, financial plan, operating guide, and a communications device. Arden Hills has received all three awards from the GFOA. These awards are for: CAFR -2009, PAFR -2009, and Budget 2010. The City has received both the CAFR and PAFR awards since 2006 and the Budget award since 2009. Staff has submitted the 2011 Budget and the 2010 financial reports to the awards program and they are confident that they fulfill the program requirements and will be receiving the awards in the future. He presented the CAFR, PAFR and the Budget Awards to Director of Finance and Administrative Services Iverson and the City. Director of Finance and Administrative Services Iverson stated much work goes into producing these documents and each member of the Finance Staff takes a lead role in preparing the documents. The members of the Finance Staff are: Kyle Howard, Finance Analyst who works on the Budget Document; Ashley Bertrand, Accounting Analyst who works on the Financial Report; and Pang Silseth, Accounting Clerk who prepares the Popular Financial Report. She would like these awards presented to these staff members in recognition of their work on these documents. Mayor Grant congratulated Staff on their achievements. PUBLIC Mayor Grant opened the Public Inquiries /Informational at 7:15 p.m. Mr. Gregg Larson, 3377 N Snelling Avenue, Arden Hills, congratulated Director of Finance and Administrative Services Iverson on the awards received. He stated there had been a recent article in the paper that referenced stadium secrecy at the legislature. He stated this was the same thing that was happening at the City level. He stated there has not been any open house or public hearing hosted by Arden Hills since the "closed door" discussion started a year ago. He stated the City scheduled an open house for August 4 in the hopes the legislature would have acted on the stadium bill by this time and the City would be able to wash their hands of any responsibility regarding this development. He also stated that an open house was being hosted so there would not be any comments on record. St. Paul passed a resolution opposing a tax increase for the stadium but the City has not done this. He asked if the City Council was expecting the residents of Arden Hills to pay for a stadium.