Kneehill County received the 2021 Distinguished Budget Presentation Award from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) for its 2021 budget presentation.
This is the first time Kneehill County has received this award, and Deputy Reeve Ken King and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Mike Haugen accepted a plaque and award during the regular Tuesday, December 14 council meeting.
“The public generally don’t get good, easy to understand financial documents like budgets,” Director of Corporate Services Bill McKennan tells the Mail.
Mr. McKennan explains both he and CAO Haugen are new to the municipality and had made a commitment to revise the budget to be more comprehensive for ratepayers.
While the presentation does include regular budget information, including Capital and Operating budgets, it also included a timeline on the budget process, budget pressures that have resulted in increased costs and revenue losses, as well as charts and graphs which give a better picture of budget overview and breakdown.
GFOA Executive Director and CEO Chris Morrill congratulated Kneehill County in a video for winning the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award. “The purpose of this award program is to encourage and assist governments to prepare comprehensive and understandable budget documents we believe will both improve transparency and trust,” Mr. Morrill said in the video.
Mr. McKennan notes the budget document was a collaborative effort between various departments, and the budget breakdown for each department along with department-specific significant achievements were highlighted throughout the document.
Although this is the first time Kneehill County has been presented with the Budget Presentation Award, Mr. McKennan shares their objective is to continue providing ratepayers with a budget that is easy to read and understand. The 2022 budget documents will be posted to the Kneehill County website in early 2022 ahead of regular budget deliberations.
The 2021 Kneehill County budget can be viewed online at https://kneehillcounty.com/DocumentCenter/View/5619/Budget-2021?bidId=
