The why, what, and how of resilience.

• Author: Eichem, Bob
• Position: Perspectives - Column

In traveling to conferences during the past year, I have been asked with some frequency why I chose resilience as the theme for my year as president. It is an easy question for me to answer. The city I work for--the City of Boulder, Colorado--has benefited significantly from following a path of financial resilience.

The city's journey started in 2005, as it struggled to recover from the lingering negative impacts of the 2001-2004 recession. One of the city council members asked, "What can we learn from this recession so we are ready next time?" This was the spark that ignited Boulder's desire to embed financial resilience into everything it does--and the work that the GFOA staff had already done on resilience proved to be a great launching pad for putting Boulder's prevention and mitigation practices in place. This turned out to be a timely, almost prophetic, decision, as the Great Recession of 2008-2010 was right around the corner, along with a major flood in September of 2013.

Fifteen of our dedicated peers have been working on a GFOA taskforce that is part of the growing group of government finance professionals who are field testing their findings and recommendations to make sure they will work for all of us. This group is helping define and document the why, what, and how of resilience in...