In 2018, the City of Redmond, Washington, decided that it needed a work plan to make sure it was doing the things that were most important to the city council and to the community; in short, it was time to start setting goals in a more purposeful way. “We realized that we needed a work plan to make sure that we were doing the things that were most important to the council and the community,” said Malisa Files, director of finance. “The Community Strategic Plan gave us that guidance.”

The City of Redmond had a long-range financial plan that defined its strategy for financial integrity, but policy decisions at the city council level were still somewhat ad hoc. “When I became council president, one of my goals was to have more predictability about what we would be seeing as a council and how the community could track what our priorities were and what we were working on,” said Redmond’s mayor, Angela Birney. The city already had a long-range financial plan, and the community strategic plan was written as a complement to this document.

The City of Redmond made use of GFOA's Best Practice titled Establishment of Strategic Plans to win GFOA's 2020 Award for Excellence in Governance Finance.

• Publication date: December 2020