Maui County Wins Budget Award for 24th Year in a Row

PC: Wendy Osher

For the 24th consecutive year, the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada has awarded the County of Maui the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for its budget for Fiscal Year 2017, which began on July 1, 2016.

The award is a nationally-recognized standard of achievement for Maui County that reflects the commitment of the governing body and staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting.

To receive the budget award, the County was required to meet national guidelines for effective budget presentation. These guidelines assess how well an entity’s budget serves as:

A policy document
A financial plan
An operations guide
A communication device

Budget documents must be rated proficient in all four categories, as well as meet 14 mandatory criteria within those categories, to receive the award.

In its written assessment, the GFOA commented that the County’s presentation of its financial policies were excellent and praised the budget document as outstanding. The budget document offers an excellent overview of the County’s fund structure, the review stated. The budget document provides a wide variety of performance measures on many different operational levels.

When a Distinguished Budget Presentation award is granted, a Certificate of Recognition for Budget Presentation is also presented to the individual or department designated as being primarily responsible for its having achieved the award. In this case, the award has been presented to Mayor Alan Arakawa.

Award recipients have pioneered efforts to improve the quality of budgeting and provide an excellent example for other governments throughout North America.

“We are proud of and grateful for the efforts of our County staff to improve the quality of our budgeting,” said Mayor Alan M. Arakawa.

“I wish to congratulate my predecessor, Sandy Baz, Senior Budget Specialist Marci Sato, and our dedicated team for assembling a nationally-recognized document,” said Budget Director Lynn Araki-Regan. “My staff and I are currently working diligently on Mayor’s proposed Fiscal Year 2018 budget to ensure it too will meet nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation.”

The Government Finance Officers Association is a non-profit, professional association serving nearly 17,400 government finance professionals throughout North America. The GFOAs Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Program is the only national awards program in governmental budgeting.