The city of Grand Rapids published the latest comprehensive annual financial report, as well as an easy-to-follow citizen’s guide for the same report.

The reports summarize the city’s finances for the fiscal year 2020. During last week’s committee of the whole meeting, city comptroller Max Frantz presented the guide as a summarized version of the comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR).

“Part of our duty to the community and achieving governmental excellence is to continuously work toward evolving our reporting and helping simplify sometimes complex subject matter,” Frantz said. “The last thing I want is for someone to feel overwhelmed by information and this guide aims at presenting a straightforward overview of key topics for individuals to learn more about the government’s finances.”

A CAFR is a set of U.S. government financial statements comprising the financial report of a state, municipal or other governmental entity that complies with the accounting requirements of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board.

The CAFR includes an audit report, which showed the city achieved the best report possible for its financial statements for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2020. Independent auditor Plante Moran issued the unmodified “clean” opinion on the city’s financial statements. The CAFR also includes an introduction, financial section, combining statements, and schedules and statistical information.

The office of the city comptroller published the citizen’s guide to the city’s finances to help make information on city finances more accessible to the general public. For fiscal year 2020, Frantz’s goal was to evolve and redesign the citizen’s guide to help make this information easier to understand and, ultimately, to help more citizens and residents of Grand Rapids gain insight into their city’s finances. The report was published on Jan. 12.

The citizen’s guide is available in English, as well as Spanish.