The Citizen Centric Report
AGA’s Citizen-Centric Government Reporting Initiative is intended to foster innovative means of communication between governments and their citizenry. AGA believes that government financial information should be provided to citizens in forms that are clear and understandable, updated regularly and often, delivered to all, easy to locate, honest in breadth and technically accurate in detail. In fact, as the owners of government, citizens have a right to this information.
AGA citizen-centric based reports detail government finances in a visually appealing, clear and understandable four-page document. The suggested format shows community information—such as population figures, regional characteristics and government goals for the community—on the first page, and the second page presents a performance report on key missions and service. The third page details cost and revenue information, and the fourth looks forward to the year ahead.
AGA believes that these reports will make governments more accountable to their citizens, and will help Americans become better educated and better able to participate in government activities.
In 2008, AGA surveyed the public on the effectiveness of government fiscal reporting. Eighty-nine percent said that, as taxpayers, they are entitled to transparent financial management information, and 57 percent said that government has an obligation to provide it. They further indicated that government is failing to meet its financial management reporting needs, and that poor performance has created a problem of trust between residents and their governments. The survey showed that governments need new innovative means of communication to overcome those challenges.
AGA’s citizen-centric reports are designed to help remedy this. The program is an easily adoptable reporting option for all governments, including Guidelines for Content, a design template and completed reports.
The AGA Citizen-Centric Government Reporting Initiative is steadily expanding. The U.S. Departments of the Interior and Defense as well as the U.S. Coast Guard have produced reports at the federal level. The states of Oregon, Nevada, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington as well as cities and counties such as Saco, ME, Tallahassee, FL, Portland, OR, and Blount County, TN, have produced Citizen-Centric Reports to the benefit of their citizens. Many others are in the works.
We encourage you to take the initiative to work with your government employer or with the city, town or state where you live and persuade them to produce a similar report. AGA is ready and waiting to help with free consulting advice, a template and other tools to help you accomplish this goal. Please visit www.agacgfm.org/citizen/construct.aspx or call Susan Fritzlen at 800.AGA.7211 for more details.