City of Whitewater Receives GFOA Budget Award

The City of Whitewater proudly receives its first Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the 2018 budget.

The award represents a significant achievement reflecting the commitment of city staff to utilize best practices within governmental budgeting. In order to receive the budget award, the City of Whitewater 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
A financial plan
An operations guide
A communications device

Budget documents must be rated as “proficient” in all four categories, and in fourteen mandatory criteria within those categories to receive the award.

When a Distinguished Budget Presentation Award is granted to an entity, a Certificate of Recognition for Budget Presentation is also presented to the individuals or department designated as being primarily responsible for having achieved the award. This has been presented to Cameron Clapper, City Manager; Steve Hatton, Finance Director; and Karen Dieter, Comptroller.

“We are very proud to have received this award,” said Finance Director, Steve Hatton. “This was the first year the City of Whitewater submitted a budget to the GFOA Award Program. We developed a number of enhancements to our 2018 Budget document with this program in mind. Each member of our staff played an important role in compiling and submitting information for us to create a complete and digestible document. We have already begun the 2019 budget process and are implementing several suggestions received through the GFOA program to further improve next year’s document.”

One purpose for submitting a governmental budget to this awards program is to benchmark efforts to improve the quality of local budgeting against established best practices. This program serves as an excellent tool for local governments throughout North America.

Over 1,000 municipalities were awarded the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award across the nation for the 2017 budget year, only 22 of which were in Wisconsin. Whitewater is proud to have joined the group of Wisconsin award winners for the 2018 budget year. The most recent Budget Award recipients, along with their corresponding budget documents, are posted quarterly on GFOA’s website www.gfoa.org.

To view the 2018 City Operational Budget: http://www.whitewater-wi.gov/images/stories/finance/documents/2018_Budget_for_publishing_with_cover.pdf