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  • Budgeting

Budgeting Best Practices

Best Practices

Achieving a Structurally Balanced Budget

Adopt rigorous policies, for all operating funds, aimed at achieving and maintaining a structurally balanced budget

Best Practices

Adopting Financial Policies

Governments should formally adopt financial policies.  Steps to consider when making effective financial policies include (1) scope, (2) development, (3) design, (4) presentation, and (5) review.

Best Practices

Fund Balance Guidelines for the General Fund

Governments should establish a formal policy on the level of unrestricted fund balance that should be maintained in the general fund for GAAP and budgetary purposes.

Best Practices

Recommended Budget Practices from the National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting

Best Practices

Working Capital Targets for Enterprise Funds

Local governments should adopt a target amount of working capital to maintain in each of their enterprise funds. Additionally, governments should use working capital as the measure of available margin or buffer in enterprise funds.

GFOA Community Logo

Introducing GFOA's New Member Communities

You can now take the public finance conversation to a whole new level by joining GFOA’s new Member Communities at community.gfoa.org. Open to active government members, this new platform, through Higher Logic, allows members to post questions, reply to posts, network with other members, share documents, and more. Members can login using their GFOA username and password.

Access Communities
GFOA
Government Finance Officers Association

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