Government Finance Officers Association

Hi, thanks for joining us today.

My name is Allison Wunsch with the Government Finance Officers Association, or GFOA.

GFOA has been collaborating with the Environmental Finance Center Network on education related to small water systems.

We are here today with Charlotte Mitchell-Dysart, Associate Legislative Director with the National Association of Counties, and Steve Vaya, Director of Federal Relations with the American Water Works Association.

We are going to be talking about regulatory changes related to PFAS drinking water standards.

And I really put, I thought some of the state preemption conversations and into perspective for me.

Two guests from the Government Finance Officers Association, GFOA, I also talked to as part of the series.

This was sort of a sneaky way to get 11 former guests into this retrospective.

But Chris Morial, who's the executive director, and Shane Kavanaugh is the senior manager of research at GFOA.

They also touched on state preemption as a theme over the last 10 years.

While also noting that local governments are taking on more responsibility, they're doing more things, while also being in this environment of declining trust in government, which is filtering down to the local level.

Yeah.

Another is, you know, is the last 10 years, definitely technology, of course, has changed so much in social media and And everyone's talking about AI now.

So one of the great things about the ICMA student chapters, as well as other professional organizations, is that students get free memberships.

So when I was a student, not only did I join ICMA, but I also joined like GFOA and the American Planners Association and kind of a bunch of different professional organizations making use of those free memberships.

And that provided access to professional development opportunities, to networking opportunities, to articles and like just information about the career, about things that were happening in the world, about what local government can do to address that.

And that really helped me narrow down things a little bit.

So I know it's a lot of words up here, but I kind of want to go through this because this is important for what we're talking about and kind of shows where we're at.

So the Government Finance Officers Association, which is the professional organization that the city is involved in, where we get all of our awards from, they have recommendations on reserve balances.

So the recommendation is to maintain reserve levels of a minimum of two months, and this is in general in street fund reserves, which is 60 days.

of regular general fund operating revenues or general fund operating expenditures.

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The Town of Chino Valley has received the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Annual Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association, GFOA, for the Town's Popular Annual Financial Report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025.

The award recognizes the town's continued commitment to making financial information accessible, understandable, and transparent for residents and the community.

FOA's Popular Annual Financial Reporting Award recognizes governments that go beyond traditional financial reporting by presenting complex financial information in a format that is easier for the public to understand.

This recognition reflects the town's ongoing commitment to responsible financial management and, just as importantly, making that information available to our residents in a way that is clear and easy to understand, town manager Terry Denemy said.

Our finance team continues to do an outstanding job ensuring Chino Valley maintains strong financial reporting practices while providing the community with meaningful information about how public dollars are managed.

The Government Finance Officers Association represents more than 25,000 public finance professionals and works to advance excellence in government finance through best practices, professional development, resources, and research.

The town of Chino Valley is proud to receive this recognition and remains committed to fiscal responsibility, transparency, and providing residents with clear information regarding the town's finances.

So we have a $10 million minimum fund balance, if you will.

And the Governmental Finance Officers Association recommendation is 16.67%, which is two months' worth of operations.

That is approximately $12 million.

So we can't spend below that.