Burn the Budget Book: Join the Digital Revolution!

John Zagurski, Director of Finance, Town of Northlake

Meg Jakubik, Strategic Services Manager, City of Bedford

GFOA Distinguished Budget Award Revisions

Criteria Revisions Summary• Table of contents can refer and link to documents outside of the

budget document.

• Strategic planning is mandatory and should include the process.

• Budget overview should summarize changes between proposed and adopted budget.

• Organization chart may consider how structure helps achieve mission.

• Financial policies should note whether the budget complies.

• Budget process should also include discussion on legal level of budget control.

Criteria Revisions Summary, cont.• Long-range operating financial plans should consider unfunded

liabilities and go beyond the general fund.

• Capital program needs to identify process of choosing funded projects.

• Debt should include bond ratings, debt to maturity schedules, and purpose of obligations.

• Performance Measures are now mandatory.

• Understandability and usability encourages governments to include other forms of communication, including videos, social media, etc.

• Understandability and usability criterion also notes that governments need to be aware of ADA requirements.

Digital Budget Book Benefits

Digital Platform Benefits• Table of Contents automatically generated and linked.

• Ability to control standard appearance of pages.

• Data able to be imported and displayed in multiple pages, eliminating data entry errors.

• ADA optimization built into the platform.

• Better usability for citizens.

DIGITAL BUDGET BOOK

TOWN OF NORTHLAKE

My Implementation Team

OpenGov Implementation Team

Implementation Timeline (November – February)

System

Set Up

Information & Data Entry

Review

Achieving the New GFOA Budget Requirements

#C1 Table of Contents (Links to outside items)

#P1 Strategic Goals & Strategies (Now Mandatory)

#O6 Performance Measures (Now Mandatory)

#C5 Charts & Graphs

#C6 Understandability and Usability

Our Digital Budget Book

• Over 4 months to developed

• Won the GFOA Distinguished Budget Award

• Performance links to the Town’s Strategic Plan

• Simplified departmental & fund presentations

Lessons Learned

• Design the document with a result in mind

• Look at as many digital budget presentations as you can before you start laying out your document

• Utilize Data to tell stories, not meet criteria

• Incorporate your Organization’s Branding into the presentation

Product Updates & Highlights

Next Gen Reporting – Customized Data Presentations

Stories – Added New Layout Controls & Filtering

Dashboards – Customizable Data Interface

Data – Increases the Ease of Data Collection

Digital Budget Book:City of Bedford

Bedford’s Implementation Team

Meg JakubikStrategic Services Manager

Brandi WestAssistant to the City Manager

ClearGov’s Implementation Team

Connor RonanClient Success Manager

Implementation Timeline

• Account Set-up

March

• Data Uploads

• User Training

April• Information

Entry

May-July

• Proposed Budget Book Published

July

Platform Features Supporting GFOA Budget Requirements

• #C1 – Table of Contents

• #F1 – Description of all appropriated funds

• #F5 – Changes in fund balance

• #F6 – Major revenue sources

• #F8 – Capital Expenditures

• #C3 – Statistical and supplemental data

• #C4 – Glossary

• #C5 – Charts and graphs

• #C6 – Understandability & usability

Our Digital Budget Book

• Developed in conjunction with budget process.

• Consolidated Department sections from previous Division presentation.

• Ability to have multiple versions (i.e. proposed and adopted) of book for different points of the process.

• Able to generate a pdf version of web-pages as needed.

Lessons Learned

• Schedule and complete onboarding before budget process kick-off.

• Explore the options in the program for better ways to present information from print versions.

• Include all accounts in your upload, even if zero amounts, to allow for last minute changes in budget amounts.

• Determine your format for Department sections prior to rollout for editing.

Product Updates & Highlights

• Demographic page refresh

• Mass update for all table settings

• Charts 2.0

• Year-end projections Column