New Resources for Cities Are Available, with More on the Way

The Center for Government Innovation, a service to local governments provided by the Washington State Auditor's Office, has been working hard to bring some new resources to local governments, including cities. We'd like to tell you about a few new items, plus what's on the near horizon to be published!

Just released: Cash Receipting Guide

This new resource includes a suite of short, 1-2 page resources for different roles and topics. This guide has something for you, whether you are:

• A leader developing a policy or looking for ways to save time and money over cash receipting operations; or

• A manager hoping to reduce risk in your cash receipting operations; or

• A supervisor looking to improve monitoring over deposits; or

• A cashier responsible for handling the money

For each role and objective, we have best practices to share based on our audit results and extensive research in this area.

We hope you check it out and let us know what you think!

Just released: Backup and Recovery Best Practices

Do you know the key factors to consider when developing your data backup procedures? How about how to use those procedures to quickly recover from a natural disaster or cyberattack?

The latest release in our #BeCyberSmart initiative, Backup and Recovery Best Practices, answers these questions and more. Use this short guide of leading practices from SAO and recognized cybersecurity leaders to protect your critical data with a strong backup and recovery plan.

Recently released and updated resources

We found in audits of city government that some could use advice on reconciling bank accounts. So we have developed a resource that includes best practices as well as a template. 

Another common recommendation in financial audits of cities is to improve review processes. We have recently updated our popular Checklist for Preparing Cash Basis Financial Statements resource. If you haven't performed a detailed review of your financial statements, we urge you to do so and consider using this tool if reporting cash basis.

Coming soon: New bid law resources

Later, we'll be publishing a Bid Law Basics Guide – this provides information on a variety of topics related to public bidding that will be available for any local government to use. Though bid laws vary by government type, this guide talks about the common aspects and directs you to additional resources if you'd like more information. It includes valuable appendices to help you look up requirements unique to your government type as well.

Also new will be a Responsible Bidder Checklist to help you make sure your bidders meet “responsibility criteria,” as required by state law. This can be a complex area to evaluate, so our checklist will be a great tool for you! It also includes some answers to frequently asked questions on this topic.

Make sure you're signed up

Do you want to know as soon as we have these resources available for you? Sign up to make sure you opt in to receive notifications from the Center for Government Innovation.

Check out our Resources Database

If you haven't signed up to receive notifications, you can always view all of our free guidance in our online database. We have a lot of great information to share, so spend a few minutes in our Resources Database to see what we have to offer!

Contact us

If you'd like to reach out to us with questions or feedback, feel free to email us at Center@sao.wa.gov. We'd love to hear from you!