The City of Owensboro’s finance department received two national awards for excellence in audit reporting and budget presentation. According to City officials, Owensboro has received more of these awards than any other city across the state of Kentucky.
Director of Finance and Support Services Angela Hamric was recognized for her excellent work over the year.
“We have an outstanding finance department,” said City Manager Nate Pagan. “We see that on a daily basis, but it is nice to know they’re recognized for their work as well.”
Due to the finance department’s work over the last year, the City of Owensboro received the Achievement of Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), a professional association of around 19,000 state, provincial and local government finance officers in the United States and Canada.
“This is the highest form of recognition in the area of government accounting and financial reporting,” said Mayor Tom Watson. “It represents a significant accomplishment by the government and its management.”
This marks the 38th time the City of Owensboro has been awarded this certificate, Watson said.
The City of Owensboro was also awarded the GFOA Distinguished Budget Presentation Award.
“In order to receive a budget award, the City has to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation,” Watson said.
This is the 19th time the City of Owensboro has received the award for budget presentation.
Overall, no other city in the Commonwealth has received the number of these awards that Owensboro has, which is a huge accomplishment for the City’s finance department, according to City officials.
Out of 13 Kentucky cities eligible for the GFOA Excellence in Financial Reporting award, the second-closest City to Owensboro has won 35 awards, compared to Owensboro’s 38. As for the budget, only four other cities have won the award at all, and the runner-up City has received 10 awards compared to Owensboro’s 19.
Hamric recognized staff members such as Dena Galloway, Tim Goff and Whitney Brown for their work over the last year.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into the audit–like [the IT department], a lot of that work goes on behind the curtains,” Hamric said. “Our program has been leading the charge for quite some time.”
