In the last guest editorial we opened the doors to City Hall and explored the many facets of the community services department. In this article, I would like to share details on another department with which nearly every resident interacts at one point or another during their residency — that being the finance department.
The finance department directs and manages all of the city’s financial functions. These include accounting, financial reporting, debt management, investment of public funds, budgeting, payroll and accounts payable. The finance department is also responsible for all billing and collections, most notably for all city utilities (water, sewer, sanitation, etc.) and the administration of Sidney’s income tax. Information technology also falls under the umbrella of the finance department. Ginger Adams is the current finance officer.
It is important for residents to know that Sidney’s Finance Department is one of our strongest departments! Since 2000, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) has annually awarded the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award to the city of Sidney. This award is presented to governmental entities that publish a budget document, which was judged to be proficient in several categories, including its effectiveness as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device.
To give you an idea of the rarity of this award, Sidney is just one of 15 (1.6 percent) Ohio cities to receive the award, and for reference, there are 938 municipalities in Ohio. Of the 19,354 municipalities in the United States, just 319 received the award!
In addition, since 1998, the finance department has annually received the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. This award is presented by GFOA to governmental entities whose Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) achieves the highest standards in government accounting and financial reporting. This past year, 127 (13.5 percent) of Ohio’s municipalities received this award.
Transparency is a word that has been much bantered about lately. While the concept of transparency is new to some, the city of Sidney has been publishing financial information, including the annual budget, monthly financial reports, investment, deposit and financial policies, as well as the CAFR, the five year financial plan and an user friendly Citizens’ Annual Financial Report on its website for a number of years.
I’m pleased to announce the city will become even more transparent in the near future. The finance department has been working with our software vendor provide detailed, transaction-based financial information to website visitors. Similar to the OhioCheckbook.com initiative, the system will integrate seamlessly with existing software to provide a searchable, online database detailing transactions. We hope to have the new system available early in 2017.
The folks in IT plan and then install and maintain the technology that improves our business processes, increases efficiency, and improves the use of data for all city departments. IT also manages network connections for data and voice from the Municipal Building to the eight other City facilities as well as managing the Internet and E-Mail connectivity, web site and intranet. Under contract, they provide similar services for the various county offices.
Geographic Information System (GIS) is another part of IT. GIS provides support for the city departments with mapping and data management. GIS also assigns addresses for dwellings within the city.
Basic utilities, such as water, sewer, stormwater and trash collection are important services provided to you as a Sidney resident. As a result, revenue collection is the one part of the finance department with which virtually every resident will interact at one point in time or another. Council remains committed to providing the best possible service at the most reasonable rates we can for consumers.
In 2008, as the city began to weather the Great Recession, the staff of both utility billing and income tax collection was merged into a single unit — revenue collection. The staff in revenue collection bills and collects the majority of the city’s revenue including, income tax, utility bills, cemetery fees, swimming pool passes, lodging tax, code enforcement fees and other generalized billing.
This is a brief overview of the many services provided within our finance department. I invite you to explore the city’s website (www.sidneyoh.com) to learn more about our awarding-winning financial team and the many and varied services they offer both internally and externally.
Shortly we’ll explore the public works department. The public works department is still another city department with which every resident has contact.
