For Immediate Release: April 27, 2022
GUNNISON COUNTY RECEIVES FIRST EVER TRIPLE CROWN DESIGNATION
Recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) for Fiscal Year 2020
Gunnison County, Colo – GFOA's Triple Crown recognizes governments who have received GFOA's Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting (ACFR), Popular Annual Financial Reporting (PAFR) Award, and the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award in a fiscal year. “I’m very proud of our whole Finance team for this impressive achievement,” said County Manager Matthew Birnie. Gunnison County Chief Financial Officer Juan Guerra added, “With the County Manager’s guidance, new tools have been developed to increase communications and transparency to the public and elected officials so they may understand the status of operations, finances, and economic conditions in easy to understand formats. The development of these new tools coincides with professional best practices and hopefully will continue building trust with the community. It’s been an honor to lead the development of these new tools with the help of my team! These new tools along with the tools already available should enable the public to be proud of the good work Gunnison County is doing for them.”
This was the first ever PAFR award given to Gunnison County, and the award represents a significant achievement. In order to be eligible for the PAFR award, a government must also submit its annual comprehensive financial report to GFOA’s Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting Program and receive the Certificate for the current fiscal year. Each eligible report is reviewed by judges who evaluate the report based on the following categories: reader appeal, understandability, distribution methods, creativity and other elements.
In order to receive the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award, Gunnison County had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation that have been designed to assess how well an entity’s budget serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device. Budget documents must be rated “proficient” or “outstanding” by at least two of the three reviewers in all overall categories and mandatory criteria to receive the award. An important characteristic of budgets that receive this award is that they include performance as well as financial information.
More information about Gunnison County’s financial transparency efforts is available online at https://www.gunnisoncounty.org/390/Financial-Reporting and https://www.gunnisoncounty.org/388/Budget. For further details, please contact CFO Juan Guerra at (970) 641-7671.
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