ELLICOTT CITY, MD – Howard County Executive Calvin Ball today announced that the County’s inaugural Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Popular Annual Finance Report (PAFR) has been recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) of the United States and Canada with its “Popular Annual Financial Reporting Award”.
This award further solidifies our commitment to transparency and making sure our financial reports are easily accessible and readable by the general public. I want to thank everyone in our fantastic Finance Department for their hard work, award-winning excellence, and continued efforts to help make Howard County an innovative and efficient government.
A modified version of the County’s fully Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for FY2021, the PAFR is a shorter and simpler version to provide the public with an overview of the County’s operations, programs and financial condition in an accessible and transparent format.
Issued each fiscal year, the County’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report includes statements of special revenue, capital projects, enterprise, internal service, trust and general funds. It also discloses the county’s long-term obligations and fixed assets, including infrastructure, and statistical charts on multi-year tax collection and assessable base figures. This comprehensive report offers transparency in government accounting for the benefit of county taxpayers, elected officials, investors, vendors and consumers. The County’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for FY2022, and its corresponding FY2022 Popular Annual Financial Report are both now available online.
We are very excited to receive this recognition for our inaugural edition of the PAFR because it means we achieved our goal of producing a high-quality report that is useful to the general public in understanding the County’s financial condition without the use of jargon or technical language. Thanks to County Executive Ball for his unwavering support for maintaining the highest standards of professionalism in the management of the County’s finances.
The Department of Finance collects and invests revenues in a fiscally responsible manner; provides financial services to taxpayers, businesses, agencies, residents and employees; and pays bills for the county.
GFOA represents more than 20,000 members as the premier association of public sector finance professionals providing support to state and local governments. To learn more about this association and its award programs, visit https://www.gfoa.org/.