Hanover Township recognized for financial reporting

The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) presented Hanover Township with the Outstanding Achievement in Popular Annual Financial Reporting (PAFR) Award for the Township’s FY 2023 budget. This marks the first instance the Township has been recognized with this honor.

“While all governments are obligated to report and submit their financials for public viewing, not all the information is easily understood or explained in its current form,” said Brian P. McGuire, Hanover Township Supervisor. “This award continues with our trend of open and honest government at Hanover Township,”

According to the GFOA, the PAFR program was established in 1991 to encourage and assist state and local governments to extract information from their annual comprehensive financial report to produce high quality popular annual financial reports specifically designed to be readily accessible and easily understandable to the public and other interested parties.

Each PAFR report is reviewed by judges who evaluate the document based on the following categories: reader appeal, understandability, distribution methods, creativity and other elements.

With the presentation of the PAFR award, Hanover is the first Township in Illinois to be listed as a GFOA Triple Crown Winner, having previously received the association’s Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting and the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award.

“This is a rare and significant achievement not easily obtained across the different levels of local government,” said James Barr, Hanover Township Administrator. “The award reflects the dedication of the Township Board, the finance committee, and the work of staff, who spent many hours compiling the documents.”

The Government Finance Officers Association is a nonprofit professional association serving 20,000 government finance professionals throughout North America.