The City of Gastonia has received the Government Finance Officers Association’s Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for its fiscal year 2019 budget report. The association describes the award as “the highest form of recognition in governmental budgeting,” adding that the award “represents a significant achievement.”
“This award demonstrates the City of Gastonia’s continued commitment to producing a budget that is user-friendly, informative and transparent,” said Crystal Certain, the City’s director of financial services. “Even though Gastonia has received this award for the past 25 years, we still recognize it as an honor and make it a priority when developing the City’s budget.”
More than 1,600 organizations participated in the Budget Awards Program. The GFOA, a professional organization that provides guidance and training to more than 19,000 local and state government finance officials, presents the annual award to organizations whose budget reports “reflect the commitment of the governing body and staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting.”
To receive the budget award an organization had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation. GFOA said those guidelines are designed to assess how well a budget report serves as a financial plan, a policy document, an operations guide and a communications vehicle. The City of Gastonia’s budget report was rated as “proficient” in the four major categories, meeting the requirements of 14 mandatory criteria within those categories.
See the City of Gastonia’s fiscal year 2019 budget.
