PWC government receives award for budget and capital improvement program

Prince William County Office of Management and Budget has earned the Government Finance Officers Association, or GFOA, Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for the 29th consecutive year. The association gives the award to jurisdictions that demonstrate thoroughness in their budget process.

The association awarded its highest honor to the county for its Fiscal 2017 Budget document, which, according to the association’s evaluation, showed excellence in the use of charts and graphs, statistics, financial summaries and for its inclusion of an effective glossary, a complete budget introduction and comprehensive overview, among other criteria.

Prince William County Budget Director, Michelle Casciato, said winning the award demonstrates that the county meets best practices in drawing up a budget.

The budget director was quoted in a county news release as saying, “The mission of our budget process is to help our elected leadership and the community make informed choices about the provision of services and capital assets in Prince William County.  We have a very robust budgeting process here in Prince William.  The GFOA Distinguished Budget Award recognizes the county for using international best budgeting practices to create a budget that is an effective policy document, financial plan, operations guide and, most importantly, communicates those decisions to our community and stakeholders.”

The county also received the Special Capital Recognition Award for its capital improvement and debt section of the budget and receiving outstanding ratings for the capital investment descriptions. In particular, the detailed description of operating budget impacts created by capital investments in current and future years was cited as outstanding.

Casciato said the award is hard to get. “We are especially proud of the special recognition for our Capital Budget.  Less than 1 percent of all budgets submitted to GFOA each year receive this distinction.  Prince William has received this special recognition twice in the last four years.”

For more information about the County’s budget, visit http://www.pwcgov.org/budget.