Hillsborough Recognized for Achievement in Performance Reporting

The Association of Government Accountants has honored the Town of Hillsborough with a Gold Certificate of Achievement in Performance Reporting.

Hillsborough was selected for its exceptional accountability report for Fiscal Year 2009-10 by a panel of government financial managers. This is the second year the town has received a Service Efforts and Accomplishments award.

“We are pleased and honored to receive the award,” Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens said. “It certainly adds to our confidence that overall we are doing the right things and doing things right.”

The gold award is given to entities that fully apply 13 of 16 criteria — based on the Governmental Accounting Standard Board’s 16 suggested criteria — and that receive no scores of zero from more than one reviewer.

Each year, Hillsborough analyzes whether it’s meeting its key objectives and documents these findings in an annual performance report. The report includes each department’s strategy map and balanced scorecard for the year with notes on target results and existing challenges.

The balanced scorecard is a system the town uses to ensure key objectives are met. The system blends strategy maps, scorecards and budgetary information together to better align the town’s time, money and resources with top priorities. Each department sets goals for how to serve the community, run town operations, manage resources and develop personnel. They then track these measures throughout the year.

“There are many things that make me proud of our local government, and the balanced scorecard system we’ve implemented is high on that list,” the mayor said. “I’m especially grateful to our town manager and town staff. It would be easy to make the scorecard process just an administrative exercise, but it’s clear they really have used the tool to improve how we serve our community.”

The Association of Government Accountants’ award program offers in-depth evaluation of performance reports; recommendations for improvements; and recognition of excellent reports with a Certificate of Excellence. The reviews are not intended to evaluate the quality of a government or its performance but to evaluate how well a government or other organization informs the public about its performance.

Hillsborough’s Fiscal Year 2010 annual performance report is available on the town’s Web site under Town Government. Click on the Town Budget page.