10/2/2012 - MCIA Joins National Initiative to Issue Easy to Understand Citizen-Centric Report
Mercer County Improvement Authority Among the First in Nationwide Program to Issue a concise and Easy-To-Understand Report on Fiscal Priorities, Performance Results and Future Challenges
Trenton, NJ—The Mercer County Improvement Authority (MCIA) released a four-page “Report to our Community” today as part of a national initiative by the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) to bring clarity to reporting at all levels of government. In doing so, the MCIA joined other states, counties and municipalities in adopting the model used by AGA’s Citizen-Centric Initiative.
The initiative aims to bring more citizens into discussions over local priorities by making government financial documents concise and easy to understand. The AGA has encouraged municipal, county and state governments to publish straightforward reports about their fiscal condition, performance and future challenges that provide an honest and clear answer to the question “Are we better off today than we were last year?”
“Government financial statements generally read like telephone books, with more pages of footnotes than the average citizen knows what to do with,” said Phillip Miller, MCIA’s Executive Director. “The Citizen Centric project is about making reports easier to read and making them understandable for the people we serve.”
The report measures the MCIA’s performance in 2011 and looks at the challenges that lie ahead. It celebrates a number of 2011 successes, including being one the few agencies recognized for transparency by the State Comptroller’s Office. Other accomplishments include cost-effective refinancings, safe disposal of the County’s solid waste and superior results of the Household Hazardous Waste and Used Electronics Collections and the curbside recycling program. The report also lists some of the MCIA’s projects such as the new Mercer County Criminal Courthouse and the Renewable Energy Program.
The “Report To Our Community” is available here.