City receives Triple Crown Award from the Government Finance Officers Association
Back to SearchMedicine Hat – The City of Medicine Hat was the recipient of three Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) awards in 2019: the Canadian Award for Financial Reporting for the year ending 2019, the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Annual Financial Reporting for the year ending 2019, and the Award for Outstanding Budget Presentation for the 2019-2022 budget. GFOA has recognized the City of Medicine Hat as a recipient of the Triple Crown status for receiving all three awards in the same year.
“Top quality financial and budget reporting is essential if the City of Medicine Hat is to be fully accountable to residents and to others with an interest in the City’s finances,” said Dennis Egert, Managing Director of Corporate Services.
The City has received the Canadian Award for Financial Reporting for its annual financial report every year since 2002. The Canadian Award for Financial Reporting Program was established to encourage municipal governments throughout Canada to publish high quality financial reports and to provide peer recognition and technical guidance for officials preparing these reports. Its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a municipal government and its management.
The Popular Annual Financial Report Award recognizes cities and local governments who produce a high quality annual financial report by extracting information from their comprehensive annual financial report. The annual report is specifically designed to be readily accessible and easily understandable to the general public and other interested parties without a financial background. The production of the City’s annual report is the result of the efforts from all departments and assembled by Corporate Communications. The City of Medicine Hat has received this award each year since 2012.
GFOA established the Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Program (Budget Awards Program) to encourage and assist state and local governments to prepare budget documents of the very highest quality that reflect the GFOA's best practices on budgeting and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal. To earn recognition, budget documents must meet program criteria and excel as a policy document, financial plan, operations guide, and communication tool. 2019 was the first year that the City of Medicine Hat applied for and received this award.
“The GFOA recognition is a testament to our staff’s commitment to achieving and maintaining excellent reporting standards,” said Lola Barta, Director of Finance. “Making the complex finances of a municipality easily accessible and comprehensible to our stakeholders is no easy task, especially with the added complexity of owning our own utilities. I’m proud of our staff for their efforts.”
The Triple Crown award is presented in the form of a medallion that is affixed to one of the award plaques from the 2019 year.
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