Finance Department earns GFOA honor

Receives certificate of achievement for eighth straight year

PRESS RELEASE
November 28, 2016

GARFIELD COUNTY, CO – Garfield County’s Finance Department was honored for the eighth straight year by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA).

The certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting was received for the fiscal year that ended Dec. 31, 2015.

“The Certificate of Achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management,” the GFOA statement notes.

“It takes a strong team effort to put together an annual report that meets the GFOA’s standards of excellence,” Interim Finance Director Cathleen Van Roekel said. “It’s very stringent, there’s a lot of criteria to meet. Two audits take place, and everyone in the department has great attention to detail and is numbers driven.”

The GFOA established the certificate program in 1945 to encourage and assist state and local governments to go beyond the minimum requirements of generally accepted accounting principles to prepare comprehensive annual financial reports. This was driven by the desire to acknowledge the spirit of transparency and full disclosure, and to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal.

“We worked with staff in all of the county’s offices and departments to attain the correct information,” Van Roekel said. “It’s the end result of eight or nine months of hard work we put into it. The auditors said we are a role model in the governmental sector and they use us as an example for their other clients.”