CSMFO’s mission is to serve all financial professionals through innovation, collaboration, continuing education and professional development. In order to fulfil its intended purpose, CSMFO must continuously make organizational changes, some big and some small, to stay current with modern and best practices. In a changing society where technology and social change is advancing at a rapid pace, CSMFO is doing its best to respond to these changes and continue to provide outstanding services to its members. CSMFO is working on a number of significant initiatives in 2023 that are new and or have not been addressed in some time.
Membership Dues Structure
The membership due’s structure was changed for 2023 for the first time in well over a decade. The Board of Director’s in 2022 decided to develop a tier system for its 2023 members’ dues in order to attract more young professional members to the organization. Dues changed from a flat $110 for all members to $50 for new finance professionals and $125 for managers. We are in the process of analyzing the outcome of the changes prior to going into our next membership drive starting in November 2023.
Leadership Opportunities for Commercial Members
Included within the 2022 CSMFO Strategic Action Plan “Leadership Identification & Development” Focus Area was a goal to evaluate CSMFO’s opportunities for commercial member partners to serve in leadership roles. CSMFO has in the past opened leadership positions to CSMFO members who were not employed in a city agency, such as a county or special district. The first president who wasn’t from a city agency was Laura Nomura in 2012 from the Riverside Public Utilities District. In December 2022, the Board of Directors unanimously approved allowing commercial members more involvement in CSMFO leadership including a director position on the Board. CSMFO membership approved the related bylaws changes in August to be effective with the 2024 election of officers. CSMFO looks forward to the positive contributions commercial members will have to our governance.
Long-Term Financial Plan
An initiative to develop a Long-Term Financial Plan was a part of the 2022 Strategic Goals that carried over to 2023. The process was overseen by the newly formed Finance Committee and started in early 2022 with the analysis of past budgets and related activity over the last 10 years. After gaining a strong understanding of historical activity and in the face of a structural budget deficit of $150,799 for 2022, the 2023 budget was prepared which formed the baseline of a five-year forecast. The Finance Committee determined it was also important to develop related financial principles that will guide CSMFO in upcoming years. Some of the principles will be implemented immediately and some over multiple years to bring the organization into financial alignment with the plan. I want to congratulate the Finance Committee for addressing this significant issue and developing a course of action, with guiding principles for CSMFO to follow.
Website Refresh
The next significant initiative currently being worked on is an update to CSMFO’s website that has not been updated in at least a decade. The Board approved the project in December 2022 and approved the related contract in February 2023. The goal of the project is to modernize the look of the website and address some of the shortcomings in our current site. The project is also requiring an extensive, and long needed review of CSMFO’s content to refresh it for our members’ needs. The initiative is expected to be substantially completed by the end of 2023 with ongoing tweaks to the site expected after that.
New Educational Offerings
While work on and oversight of these initiatives are in progress, CSMFO continues to provide cutting edge educational opportunities to its members. This continues to reinforce the foundation of CSMFO as enumerated in the mission statement to provide continuing education and professional development to our members. The Career Development Committee (CDC), which oversees our educational webinars and core courses has developed two new core courses, the “ABCs of Municipal Finance” and “Financial Management and Analysis”. These courses are innovative and will educate members from initial employment to management. I want to thank the CDC for their efforts and I applaud their important work.
Jean completed a distinguished 31-year career serving local government in California, starting as an Accountant II with Fresno County. He moved up the finance ladder to Chief Accountant before moving to the Assistant County Administrative Officer position in 2004. In 2007, he moved into the County’s top position (County Administrative Officer), serving Tulare and Fresno counties for 14 years until his retirement. He has served in several finance and accounting roles, including as Finance Director/Controller for the City of Fresno, Principal and Senior Accountant for Fresno County, and Staff Accountant for Sampson & Sampson CPAS.
