118th Annual Conference Sessions: Business Process Improvement
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Sessions for Sunday, June 9
Let’s Not be Petty: Getting Rid of Petty Cash
The petty cash drawer will always have a special place in our hearts—the hidden keys, the clang of the change, and a quick way to break a twenty or—but it's also an antiquated practice that is susceptible to fraud and abuse - and potentially can expose your organization to procurement policy or legal compliance issues. Petty cash can be difficult to track and presents challenges to ensuring expenses are recorded appropriately. Alternatives can provide better security and tracking of expenses and sometimes even provide cash back and other rewards. This session will discuss the risks of petty cash and how to help move not only the finance office, but all other departments to alternative forms of payment for small purchases.
Sessions for Monday, June 10
Staffing and Stations and Trucks, Oh My! Fire Service Basics for Finance Officers
The fire service may be one of the most complicated services that local government provides. Finance staff can easily be overwhelmed by the unfamiliar jargon, unusual schedules, and specialized equipment that fire and rescue staff use to keep communities safe. At this session, you will learn the basics of the fire service, including what the job of a firefighter entails and different options for staffing and scheduling. With this new knowledge, you can assist your colleagues in the fire service more effectively.
Risky Business: What's the Right Amount of Reserves?
Governments are subject to financial shocks, including natural catastrophes, recessions, and more. Financial reserves are essentially a form of self-insurance that governments use to buffer themselves against these risks. But what are the risks governments should be concerned about? What size of reserves is appropriate to cover risks? What opportunities are there to use commercial insurance to help cover these risks? Speakers in this session will answer these questions and more. Attendees will leave with resources and strategies to apply risk-aware and risk-savvy thinking to reserves in their own organizations.
Sessions for Tuesday, June 11
Let's Make Some Magic: The Basics of Business Process Improvement
Do you ever wish you could wave a magic wand to fix a broken process in your organization? Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple, but in this session, you will learn skills and techniques you can employ to improve all types of processes in your organization. Speakers will discuss their approach to business process improvement, give advice on managing change, and inspire you to make your own magic in your organization.
Sessions for Wednesday, June 12
When the Sky Actually Falls, Where do We Start?
With threats like aging infrastructure, heightened weather events, extreme climate conditions, and other external risks, many finance professionals will likely have to deal with some kind of "hundred year" event during their careers. This session will explore the aftermath of such an event--how to fund recovery and build recovery capacity, who to involve, and how to lead, and how to keep basic operations going. This session will feature conversations with public finance professionals who have led through the incidents that we all hope never to experience, but must be prepared to address. The goal is to help ensure that we are in a better position to consider what needs to happen in the event of the unthinkable happening to our government and community.
Outsourcing AP Functions
While once believed to only be an internal function of government, many governments are looking to outsource all or sections of accounts payables (AP) functions. Streamlining the payment process with the enhanced controls that are often part of bank and other payment providers’ infrastructure can save staff time, mitigate risk, and even generate revenues. This session will explore options for outsourcing AP functions, explain how it works with existing financial systems, estimate how it changes staffing needs in finance, and discuss the considerations a government should make when determining whether outsourcing payables is the right decision.