Evaluation Process

Effective January 2026

GFOA reviewers will review the Submission Materials and related application and evaluate against the budget award criteria for the following:

Completeness of Information - Reviewers will determine if the applicant provided sufficient information to answer the relevant questions identified in the criteria.
Quality of Information - Reviewers will score the applicants Submission Materials to evaluate their ability to clearly and concisely communicate key budget messages to the intended audience.

Information will scored using the format defined below and each category will be assigned a score between 0 and 5. The score will be divided by 5 and then multiplied by the total points possible for the category to calculate the total points earned.

Completeness

Score	Description
0	No - Information is missing
1	Partial - Some questions are answered, but other information is missing.
2	Yes - Questions are answered

Quality

Score	Description
0	Incomplete (Only applicable for a completeness score of 0)
1	Low Quality - Message is not clear and confusing
2	Medium Quality - Message communicates information but there is significant opportunity to improve clarity of message or remove unnecessary or confusing information.
3	High Quality - Clear and direct message that is easily understood by the intended audience.

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