Promoting Financial Accountability in Local Governments

Promoting Financial Accountability in Local Governments

Globally, every government should be accountable for the country’s finances to all its citizens. According to the constitution, all citizens have the right to know how the federal and national governments collect, manage and spend taxes. In turn, this facilitates accountability and transparency of the governments to the public. Consequently, the local governments need to create public awareness of the financial status of the government to boost the citizens’ confidence in monitoring government debt and liabilities. Disclosing the local government assets and liabilities plays a vital role in economic implications assessment in the public sector financial management. Significantly, it is the mandate of the local governments to ensure that financial information and statements are available for every citizen.

Some of the financial reports from the local government auditor general are so complex for the local citizens to understand; therefore, the financial information ought to be citizen-centric, that is, presented in a way that eases understandability and allows citizens to hold their government accountable. For instance, the Association of Government Accountants formularized a technique that facilitates a citizen-centric approach of delivering the government’s financial reports in only four pages (Turley et al, 2015). Moreover, financial statements should be clearly indicated and inclusive of a comprehensive annual financial report.

Turley et al (2015) agree that a comparative data need to be provided to highlight the trends of how the local government is handling the public finances. Local governments should embrace broad distribution of the financial reports by posting them on their official website, newspapers, magazines, and also provide copies at public places such as libraries (Da Cruz, et al, 2016). Besides, the reports should encourage the provision of feedback from the public.

The City of Los Angeles is an example of a local government headed by the Mayor. The local government has a city controller who is the chief auditor and accounting officer of the city. The local government of Los Angeles has a user-friendly and straightforward website having all financial reports and statements available for its citizens. All these are found on the city finance and budget icon which incorporates the city fiscal policies, both mid-year and annual financial status reports, and financial reports. Both reports comprise of budget outlooks, revenue estimates, and general fund cash flow. Chatham County in Georgia is another illustration of a local government which embraces transparency and accountability. In Chatham’s county website, the budget and finances report are well illustrated on the budget and legislation icon. It comprises of property tax rates, the current adopted budget, and comprehensive annual financial statements. All the information is available in PDF and document formats which are easy to understand.

In conclusion, public participation in financial decision making in governments improve the citizens’ perception of governmental performance. Although the process of public participation may be costly and complex, the governments need to recruit volunteers who can educate the public on matters concerning planning, budgeting and disbursement of finances back to the citizens. Additionally, governments should encourage public participation in the process of decision making by considering the feedback provided by the public through different channels. According to Haro-de-Rosario et al (2018), public views may be accessed from the governments’ websites, public forums, social media accounts, or non-governmental financial surveys. In light of this, the World Bank affirms that public participation in financial decision making facilitates the relationship between the government and its stakeholders through maximizing decisions on development initiatives and proper allocation of public resources.

References

Da Cruz, N. F., Tavares, A. F., Marques, R. C., Jorge, S., & de Sousa, L. (2016). Measuring local             government transparency. Public Management Review, 18(6), 866-893.

Haro-de-Rosario, A., Sáez-Martín, A., & del Carmen Caba-Pérez, M. (2018). Using social media to enhance citizen engagement with local government: Twitter or Facebook?. New Media        & Society, 20(1), 29-49.

Turley, G., Robbins, G., & McNena, S. (2015). A framework to measure the financial        performance of local governments. Local government studies, 41(3), 401-420.