CPFO Spotlight: Cassandra Sandusky

Why did you want to become a CPFO?

I had first learned about it through the GFOA website and the newsletters, and it really piqued my interest because I've always really loved going to school. I'd be a career student if I could, but I stepped into a full-time role being principal accountant right after graduation, so I wasn't ready or able to commit to a full-time like master's program. Once I saw that there's an online program that you can do at your own pace over two years, that really stood out to me. So I jumped on that opportunity as soon as I was able to.

What did you learn going through the process?

I come in really strong in one specific area, accounting and financial reporting. I went into it thinking I'm going to knock that test out first thing. I do ACFRs every year. Nope. It all it forces you to think about not just that topic, but how it connects to all other topics. It gets you into more of a system thinking mindset rather than just one topic at a time. 

I also learned that policy and how you communicate is just as much as important as the numbers that you get at the end of the day. You can give a financial report all you want unless you actually explain what it means and tell the story behind like the financial decisions you make, you're not going to get as far as you'd like.

How has becoming a CPFO made an impact on you in your profession or how do you hope it will make an impact?

I'm really hoping to use it so I can be more entrusted and do more strategic big picture projects. To get given a seat at the table more for the higher level decision type meetings I definitely feel it's increased my leadership's trust in me because they know I'm committed and I'm actually trying to learn more in my current role instead of just focusing on upward mobility.

What would you say to others thinking about becoming a CPFO?

Balancing the study with a full workload is definitely tough. It will teach you discipline and it will teach you prioritization skills. Do not think you need to do one test a month and get it knocked out in seven months. You want to actually soak up the information because once you get into it, you're going to see it's actually the most applicable thing to local government work that. you're possibly going to get access to. You could get an associate, bachelor's degree, master's degree, PhD, and you still might not get everything that this has because it's literally just focused on exactly what we do.