Assessing your financial management acumen: the City of Roanoke's experience with the new GFOA-CIPFA FM model.

• Author: Morrill, Christopher P.
• Position: Cover story

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Jurisdictions need to look at their financial management periodically to make sure the finance function, and thus the entire organization, is getting the most out of taxpayers' money This is especially true given the economic conditions of the last few years, which have shone a spotlight on local government finances. Financial indicators like reserve levels, revenue growth rates, or number of public employees per capita are helpful, but not forward-looking; they don't speak directly to the underlying quality and strategy of financial management. The City of Roanoke, Virginia, used the Government Finance Officers Association's new financial self-assessment tool to gain insight into these issues.

Roanoke was one of the local governments that worked with the GFOA to develop and test the FM Model for North America. Roanoke had a relatively new city manager, and the model helped him work with the financial leadership team to get a sense of the city's financial management practices.

LOOKING ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION

The financial management self-assessment model doesn't just cover the traditional topical areas of public finance--budgeting, accounting, debt, etc. Instead, it is built around three "styles" and four "dimensions" of financial management, and how they interact. The styles relate to 1) stewardship, which emphasizes control, probity, and accountability; 2) support for performance, concerning responsiveness to the public, efficiency, and effectiveness; and 3) enabling transformation, which is about being citizen-centered, managing change and risk, focusing on outcomes, and being receptive to new ideas. The four dimensions cover a blend of "hard" attributes, or things that can be measured, and other features that cannot, but are nonetheless necessary for financial management to be effective: strategic direction and its impact on financial management; staff competencies and the engagement; the organization's ability to design, manage, control, and improve its financial processes; and the relationships between the organization and stakeholders, internal as well as external. Together, the styles and dimensions form a multi-dimensional perspective.

The model promotes collaboration among different parts of the organization in assessing financial management practices and charting a path for improvement. Roanoke's team found this to be the case; budgeting, human resources, and risk management all worked together on the...