AGA's Citizen-Centric Reporting Initiative
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“Thank you AGA for
developing these tools to help governments be
accountable to the citizens they serve! Keep up the
good work.”
Christa Brooks,
Special Projects Coordinator,
Division of Administration
Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services |
New Reports Make it Easier
for Citizens to Follow Their Government’s Finances
Many governments
struggle to communicate the business of government to residents,
particularly when presenting information about how taxpayers'
money is allocated and spent. Traditionally, financial
information has been presented in forms accessible only to
trained accountants — reams of information, which, though vital,
have little meaning for the average person.
AGA's
Citizen-Centric Government Reporting Initiative is intended to
foster innovative means of communication between governments and
their citizenry. AGA believes that government financial
information should be provided to citizens in forms that are
clear and understandable, updated regularly and often, delivered
to all, easy to locate, honest in breadth and technically
accurate in detail. In fact, as the owners of government,
citizens have a right to this information.
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“We know that
governments have a reputation for being good at
collecting taxes but not necessarily as good at being
accountable for how those tax dollars are spent, Saco
wants to change that. This report has both the good and
the bad. And while I’m glad to say there’s more ‘good’
to report in Saco these days, this report is chock full
of challenges coming down the pike. We’re hoping to
inform a thoughtful debate on these issues.”
Mayor
Mark Johnston
City
of Saco, Maine |
AGA
citizen-centric based reports detail government finances in a
visually appealing, clear and understandable four-page document.
The suggested format shows community information—such as
population figures, regional characteristics and government
goals for the community—on the first page, and the second page
presents a performance report on key missions and service. The
third page details cost and revenue information, and the fourth
looks forward to the year ahead.
AGA
believes that these reports will make governments more
accountable to their citizens, and will help Americans become
better educated and better able to participate in government
activities.
In 2008,
AGA surveyed
the public on the effectiveness of government fiscal
reporting. Eighty-nine percent said
that, as taxpayers, they are entitled to transparent financial
management information, and 57 percent said that government has
an obligation to provide it. They further indicated that
government is failing to meet its financial management reporting
needs, and that poor performance has created a problem of trust
between residents and their governments. The survey showed that
governments need new innovative means of communication to
overcome those challenges.
AGA’s
citizen-centric reports are designed to help remedy this. The
program is an easily adoptable reporting option for all
governments, including
guidelines for content, a
design
template and
completed reports.
The AGA
Citizen-Centric Government Reporting Initiative is steadily
expanding. The U.S. Departments of the Interior and Defense as
well as the U.S. Coast Guard have produced reports at the
federal level. The states of Oregon, Nevada, South Carolina,
Tennessee and Washington
as well as cities and counties such as Saco, ME, Tallahassee,
FL, Portland, OR, and Blount County, TN, have produced
Citizen-Centric Reports to the benefit of their citizens. Many
others are in the works.
We encourage you to
take the initiative to work with your government employer or
with the city, town or state where you live and persuade them to
produce a similar report. AGA is ready and waiting to help with
free consulting advice, a template and other tools to help you
accomplish this goal. Please visit
www.agacgfm.org/citizen/construct.aspx or call
Susan Fritzlen at
800.AGA.7211 for more details.