For the 13th consecutive year, Iowa City’s Finance Department has been awarded the national Distinguished Budget Presentation Award by the Government Finance Officers Association. This award recognizes the budget plan for fiscal 2025, which took effect on July 1 and will remain in effect through June 30, 2025.

The Government Finance Officers Association is a nonprofit group of 22,000 government finance professionals throughout North America that is involved in the advancement of excellence in public finance. The association noted that the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award represents a significant achievement and a commitment to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting.

The City’s Finance Director Nicole Davies received notification of the award on Sept. 9. This award is the highest achievement and form of recognition in governmental budgeting.

Davies said that Iowa City had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines, which led them to secure the prestigious award. The association looks at four areas of the budget’s effectiveness — policy, financial plans, operations guidelines, and communications devices — when determining who gets the award. Iowa City’s budget received one of the two highest rankings in all the categories.

The Government Finance Officers Association established the Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Program in 1984 to encourage and assist state and local governments in preparing budget documents of the highest quality — meaning they are transparent, informative, and suitable for all departments involved.

Approximately 1,800 governments, including states, cities, counties, special districts, school districts, and more have been recognized for transparency in budgeting, according to the Government Finance Officers Association website.

“I think we do a good job of laying the budget out in a way that makes it easier to understand,” Davies said. “It’s transparent, realistic, and we lay out as much information as we can of what’s going on in the city.”

Iowa City City Councilor Andrew Dunn remarked on the advancements the city has made over the last 13 years to maintain the success of the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award.

“The award is a great example of Iowa City’s fiscal responsibility and our excellent planning,” Dunn said. “It’s something we’re very proud of. It’s really important to us as a community and a government to make sure we’re running our finances in a way that’s transparent, sustainable, and affordable.”

Amongst other surrounding communities, Iowa City stands out with their budget plan, Dunn reports. The work being done each year by maintaining staffing of those responsible for the award and prioritizing financial sustainability is an advancement toward an open-government system in Iowa City.

“It makes it so that people can easily understand where their money is going and how their tax dollars are being used, which I think is important for transparency in the government,” Dunn said.

Nick Bergus, the community relations director of North Liberty, explains that, although they do not pursue awards such as the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award that Iowa City received, they are still hard at work to make a comprehensive budget plan.

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“To make our budget stand out, we just want it to be understandable to everyone who utilizes it,” Bergus said. “We provide enough details to be transparent but not too much detail that it’s difficult to understand. Efficiency, responsibility, and public knowledge are really the most important factors for a successful budget.”

Creating a sufficient budget is a “rigorous process,” Davies said. As stated by the Government Finance Officers Association, the best budget contains policies aimed at achieving and maintaining a structurally balanced budget. Sacrifices must be made, however, in the form of budget cuts to maintain this balance.

“No big cuts have been made for the current fiscal year,” Davies noted. “We have enough funds that were anticipated that we don’t have to make major cuts, which we determine through smaller numbers being examined accurately and carefully. We allocate funds to what is most necessary, but so far, no significant cuts have been made.”

Other surrounding communities have been at work on their budget plans for the same amount of time. In North Liberty, designing a budget is a year-long process, beginning in September or October with budget proposals from department heads. The proposed budget is not published until February, however, with multiple work sessions and reviews in between. The final budget does not go into effect until July.

“We try to be really thoughtful in pursuit of what is really important to the community, but we sometimes do have to make sacrifices like budget cuts,” Bergus said. “We think about the essential services and have to think efficiently and ask the hard questions about whether this project can wait, or does it need to happen now?”

Despite inflationary pressure and increased service demands, the goal of a municipal budget is to encourage the sustainable growth of the city. Iowa City’s budget considers revenue from taxes, fees, licenses, fines, and intergovernmental credit. The city considers historical data and economic conditions when predicting revenue.

The next fiscal year begins in July 2025, and work is already in place to move forward with the next budget.

“It really is a year-long process,” Bergus said. “We’re always looking to see how we can make changes that benefit the capital improvement plans of the city, always looking to fine tune without making tough cuts or sacrifices to our anticipated expenses, such as staffing, road improvements and maintenance, park and facility upkeep, law enforcement, and more. It also takes into account anticipated revenue, such as property taxes. But we’re always looking at the bigger picture of the upcoming fiscal year.”