Research Reports

GFOA's Rethinking Budgeting Initiative is exploring ways to challenge the status quo with local government budgeting. While not the first attempt by GFOA to improve budgeting practices, this project has the goal of ensuring governments promote sustainable organizations, direct limited resources to solve current challenges, and work to improve outcomes for the community. Specifically, we have set out to address:

Overall recommendations and research papers will be released as we move forward. Recently, GFOA's team has been exploring using behavioral science for better decision making. To learn more, please download the report reports listed below or watch GFOA's recorded webinar series.

For many GFOA is a source of best practices, model policies, and other recommendations on what to do to improve financial management in your government. The Financial Foundations Framework provides guidance on how to implement those changes and create a financially sustainable organization. GFOA's research has explains practical applications of the framework and provides case studies to highlight the framework in action.

Case studies demonstrate the Financial Foundations Framework in action. In each case study, practitioners explain how the framework assisted with implementation of solutions to common challenges faced by local governments.

GFOA's Research and Consulting Center (RCC) focuses on providing high quality research and advisory services by pairing the lessons learned from a broad membership network with the expertise of a highly educated professional staff that has practical experience working in local government.  Research reports both support and stem from the work completed in the field.  GFOA's Research and Consulting Center conducts regular ongoing research and can also work directly with individual governments to provide information.  Research reports are all available through GFOA's Materials Library.