The Guilford County Board of Commissioners has been spending a boatload of money in recent years. That’s not good for taxpayers, who saw their tax bills skyrocket after the 2022 countywide revaluation of property, however, according to a recent review by a government financing association of the county’s annual report and budget, Guilford County is doing a very good job of composing its public-facing finance documents and explaining where all that money comes from and where it all goes.

Guilford County government has just been recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association for the composition, clarity and presentation of the county’s recent annual financial report and its latest budget.

In addition to handing out awards for things like presentations of county budgets, the Finance Officers Association – a professional association in the United States –supports and represents government finance officials, including those at the local, state, and federal levels.

The association provides resources, guidance and best practices information meant to help those government finance and budget officials manage public funds in a responsible manner.

The association also examines how those governments document and present their financial information, which is where Guilford County has shined for years.

The current board of nine commissioners and Guilford County Manager Mike Halford have tremendously increased the size and cost of Guilford County’s budget over the last four years, but at least Guilford County officials have made those big-spending budgets clear and transparent for the public.

Recently, Guilford County received the association’s “Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting” for the county’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year 2023-2024, which ended on June 30, 2024.

This is the 42nd straight year Guilford County has earned that recognition from the Government Finance Officers Association. The Annual Comprehensive Report is prepared by the Guilford County Finance Department and it’s basically an overview of the county’s financial position for any given fiscal year.

In the latest batch of awards, Guilford County also received the association’s “Distinguished Budget Presentation Award” for the county’s fiscal year 2024-2025 budget composition and presentation. The award recognizes the work of Halford and his team of budget and finance staff when it comes to preparing budget documents and making them understandable.

 To receive this award, the association’s nationally recognized guidelines meant to assess the budget presentation have to be satisfied. Those guidelines are designed to assess how well an entity’s budget serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and a communications instrument.

According to the association, “The Government Finance Officers Association established the Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Program in 1984 to encourage and assist state and local governments to prepare budget documents of the very highest quality that reflect both the guidelines established by the National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting and the Government Finance Officers Association’s best practices on budgeting and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal. Approximately 1,800 governments, including states, cities, counties, special districts, school districts, and more have been recognized for transparency in budgeting. To earn recognition, budget documents must meet program criteria and excel as a policy document, financial plan, operations guide, and communication tool.”

Guilford County has received this award consecutively every year this century –Halford was the county’s budget director for much of that time – and the county also received the award some years at the end of the previous century.

The county’s budget presentation is assembled by the county manager and the county’s Budget and Management Services Department.

The association realized that a local government budget – or any government budget, for that matter – isn’t just a financial document but is also a document that should be clear and understandable to those who reside in that town, city, county or state, should they desire to read and review it.

Halford and his crew of budget and finance staff do a very good job of making what they’re doing understandable (even though that sometimes makes the county’s massive spending practices even scarier).

In recent years, Halford has offered several creative ways to present his proposed budget to the Board of Commissioners every May. In one presentation, for instance, he used a timeline from morning until night to show how the county’s services affect people’s lives – along with the associated costs of those services. At another presentation, Halford used an extended aviation analogy that made the presentation a lot less dry than those of former County Manager Marty Lawing.

Guilford County’s Budget Director Toy Beeninga is by far the best public speaker of any Guilford County director and his documents and presentations at county work sessions and meetings are always clear and interesting, and often very humorous as well.

Guilford County’s budget can be found on the county’s website and it is a highly readable document with a lot of helpful graphics for those who choose to take a look at it.  It’s a long read but it is really quite interesting.

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