Rockville Honored for Annual Financial Reporting

[Howard Hartman]

For Immediate Release July 7, 2011

Rockville Honored for Annual Financial Reporting

ROCKVILLE, Md., July 7, 2011 -The City of Rockville was honored this month for its Popular Annual Financial Report from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada with the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Annual Finance Reporting.

The annual award is for the Fiscal Year 2010 Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR), which is a document aimed at helping the public more easily review the City government's financial operations. It provides summary information of the City's financial statements.

While the budget book is a planning document that outlines the City revenue and expenditures, the PAFR explains what happened for a given fiscal year. The City is required to produce an audited financial report, which is referred to as the City's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR).

The City's Finance Department prepares the CAFR in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and a firm of certified public accountants audits it. Because it can be a difficult document for nonfinanciers to understand, the City created the PAFR several years ago.

The Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Annual Financial Reporting, a government must publish a PAFR that conforms to program standards of creativity, presentation, understandability and reader appeal.

This is the fourth consecutive year the City of Rockville has received the award from this organization.