City of Portsmouth Receives Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for 15th Consecutive Year

The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) has awarded the City of Portsmouth for the fifteenth consecutive year, the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the Fiscal Year 2021 budget document.

GFOA is a major professional association servicing more than 18,000 government finance professionals throughout North America. The GFOA’s Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Program, established in 1984, recognizes exemplary budget documentation by state, provincial and local governments, as well as public universities and colleges. 

Director of Finance and Administration Judie Belanger said that in order to be considered for the budget award, the City has to satisfy nationally-recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation. “Each year Portsmouth aims to increase the ease of use and understanding of the City’s annual budget, creating a document that serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide and as a communications platform,” she said. “We are working on ways to further refine the public input into the budget process.”

“The clear, accurate and accessible presentation of the City’s budget is critical to the function of City government and its dialogue with residents,” said City Manager Karen Conard in announcing the award. “The City’s Finance Department tracks an extremely complex, multi-million dollar budget on behalf of taxpayers, using best practices and stringent standards for municipal accounting. To receive recognition of that excellence from GFOA is to receive an additional incentive, beyond professional dedication, for continuous improvement in the ways the City presents our budget as a resource in the decision-making process.”