Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson announces that Oakland County has once again garnered the award for outstanding achievement in popular financial reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA). This is the 11th consecutive year that the GFOA has bestowed this honor upon the county.
"I'm just so proud of our Fiscal Services team. Winning this award shows that we have the best of the best working for Oakland County," says Patterson.
Every year, the Fiscal Services division of the Department of Management and Budget compiles a report to summarize for taxpayers how the county spends their money. It is one of the ways the county works to make government open and accessible to its residents.
Gaia Piir, grant and program coordinator in Fiscal Services, leads the team that works months to compile the financial summary. "It's a great sense of accomplishment knowing we've gotten the reward this many years in a row because it's reviewed by our peers in the Government Finance Officers Association," Piir says.
Tim Soave, Piir's manager, agrees. "It's particularly pleasing because in the past few years we've been in difficult times. It is not just getting the reward, but providing information the public can use," Soave says.
Piir is a 38-year-old resident of Ortonville. She has dedicated 17 years of service to the county. The GFOA gives the award based on the creativity, presentation, ease of understanding and reader appeal of the financial report. To view Oakland County's 2008 Financial Summary on the internet, please go to: http://www.oakgov.com/fiscal/assets/docs/2008_financial_summary.pdf.
