August-September 2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Postal Customer ECR-WSS PRST STD U.S. Postage Paid St. Paul, MN Permit #1962 I n s i d e Arden Hills, MN . 55112-5734 Tavern Grill construction underway Hazelnut Park is a favorite Back-to-school recycling tips Ralph Reeder Food Shelf info News from City HallAlthough we are starting to work on budgets for the coming year, we still have some celebrating to do for past performance. At the June 27 City Council meet- ing, a representative from the Minnesota Government Finance Officers Association (MnGFOA) presented the City with three awards from the Government Finance Of- ficers Association (GFOA) which repre- sents public finance officials in the United States and Canada. The GFOA’s mission is to enhance and promote the professional management of governmental financial resources by identifying, developing, and advancing fiscal strategies, policies, and practices for the public benefit. The GFOA has established highly re- garded professional recognition programs to encourage and assist state and local governments to improve the quality of their financial management and to recog- nize their achievement. I am pleased to announce that the City of Arden Hills has again received all three awards. Receiving these awards demonstrates that outside agencies regard our budgeting as effective and the publishing of the informa- tion as transparent to those who want to understand how our funds are spent. Win- ning these awards also helps the City to maintain its AA+ bond rating which is “one step” from the highest rating of a AAA and not generally given to a city of our size. The three awards the City won are: Certificate of Achievement for Excel- lence in Financial Reporting Program (CAFR Program) The GFOA initiated this awards program to encourage and assist state and local governments to go beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles, to prepare comprehensive annual financial reports that evidence the spirit of transparency and full disclosure, and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal. The goal of the program is not to assess the financial health of participat- ing governments, but rather to ensure that users of their financial statements have the information they need to do so themselves. This is the ninth consecutive year the City has received this award (2006 – 2014). Popular Annual Financial Reporting Award Program (PAFR Program) The GFOA established this awards program to encourage and assist state and local gov- ernments to extract information from their comprehensive annual financial reports to produce high quality popular annual financial reports designed to be readily accessible and easily understandable to the general public and other interested parties without a background in public finance and then to recognize individual governments that are successful in achieving that goal. This is the ninth consecutive year the City has received this award (2006 – 2014). Distinguished Budget Presentation Award Program (Budget Award Program) The GFOA established this program to encourage and assist state and local gov- ernments to prepare budget documents of the highest quality and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal. The criteria require that they be easily understandable to the general public and other interested parties without a background in public finance and clearly show the issues the government entity is dealing with, its policies, the bud- get process, opportunities for public input, and facts about the entity itself. It serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device. This is the seventh consecutive year the City has received this award (2009 – 2015). Only four cities in Minnesota have re- ceived all three of these awards; we can all be proud. Regards, Sue Iverson Interim City Administrator Subscribe to these social media resources to learn about City events, recreation opportunities, and more. www.twitter.com/ardenhills/city www.facebook.com/CityofArdenHillsMN Find us on social media Sue Iverson