In sharp contrast to the news from the Knox County Mayor's office today, the City of Knoxville announced that they have received a "Certificate for Excellence in Financial Reporting" for their Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2006-07.

Press release after the jump.

The City of Knoxville has received the Certificate for Excellence in Financial Reporting for its Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for Fiscal Year 2006-07.

The award is given by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) - a nonprofit professional organization serving more than 16,000 government financial professionals in the two countries.

This marks the 21st consecutive year that the City of Knoxville has received the award.

“The Certificate of Achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting,” according to GFOA release, “and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management.”

The award is given to government entities ranging from city, county and state governments to school systems, utilities, housing authorities, public employee retirement boards and airport authorities among others.

“We’re always pleased about this recognition and it’s not one that we take for granted,” said Mayor Bill Haslam. “It’s important to us to clearly reflect how the city is using taxpayer resources and our finance department does a wonderful job of that in the annual reports.”

The recipients have to demonstrate high standards in financial reporting including clearly communicating a government’s financial picture to citizens and others and doing that in a spirit of full disclosure among other requirements. An impartial board selects the recipients of the award.

“It’s important in the sense that it says we do a pretty good job of accurately portraying the financial status of the city,” said Jim York, director of the city’s Finance Department, “and we’ve met certain standards in doing that.”

The goal of the award program is to promote high quality financial reporting and, according to the GFOA, governments of all sizes participate in it.

The City of Knoxville has also received the GFOA’s Distinguished Budget Presentation Award for 20 consecutive years for its annual operating budgets.

The operating budget defines where the city’s revenues come from, how much that amount is expected to be and how the city intends to spend the money during the upcoming fiscal year.

The comprehensive annual financial report details what the city actually did during the last fiscal year.

“There are not many that do that (earn recognition for both reports),” York said.

Knoxville is one of only 16 governing bodies in Tennessee to receive both the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award and the Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting in this year’s GFOA awards.