2012 Cities and Towns Annual Report - CTAR

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Appendix 2 - Frequently Asked Questions General Why is the Annual Financial Report process on the Gateway? The goal of this project is to make local government financial data accessible to taxpayers, the media, the legislature, other State agencies, and Federal agencies. We can greatly enhance the way this information is presented to the public by collecting the data online. Collecting an storing data electronically will allow for taxpayer - friendly reports, statewide comparisons, online searchable data, and more. Taxpayers will have innovative research tools at their disposal to better understand the services their local governments provide and the cost of providing them. Access to the data by other government agencies will eliminate the need for local governments to report the same data to multiple agencies. A secondary benefit is that taxpayer money will be saved by eliminating the cost of printing, transporting, storing and photocopying paper documents. 2. What local units are required to complete an Annual Financial Report? All counties, cities, towns, libraries, townships, and special districts must complete the Annual Financial Report through the Gateway. 3. Is completion of the Annual Financial Report via Gateway mandatory? Per IC 5- 11 -1 -4 every municipality and local government is required to provide electronically and in a manner prescribed by the state examiner, financial reports for the fiscal year not later than sixty days after the close of the fiscal year. Completion and submission of the Annual Financial Report 4. What is Gateway? And what happens if I fail to submit the Annual Financial Report via Gateway? Gateway is the name of the web -based system developed for use by local units to submit required infonnation to the Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) and /or the State Board of Accounts (SBOA) electronically. SBOA will only recognize submission of the Annual Financial Reports through Gateway. SBOA will not accept the Annual Financial Report in paper form or in any other format. if a local unit fails to submit as prescribed, it will result in a comment in the local unit's audit report and the local unit will face consequences up to and including denial of the proposed budget by DLGF. Per IC 5- 11 -1 -10, the official commits a Class B infraction and forfeits their office if they do not file the proper reports with the State Examiner. 5. Who is responsible for submitting the completed report? The official that is responsible for submission of the Annual Financial Report is apparent for most local unit types (e.g. the County Auditor for Counties, the Controller or Clerk- Treasurer for Cities and Towns, and the Township Trustee for Townships). For some local units, especially those that don't submit budgets to DLGF, it may be unclear who the responsible official is. Tile local unit's "fiscal officer" should submit the Annual Financial Report. By fiscal officer we mean the employee that is responsible for the management of the local unit's financial affairs and record keeping. Many times formal positions have been defined for this function such as Controller or Treasurer. Sometimes it's unclear who the fiscal officer may be. For example, some accounting functions may be performed by a director, superintendent, bookkeeper, clerk, or even an outside contractor. If this is the case, then the Governing Board should formalize their decision, in a resolution, defining who the local unit's fiscal officer is. Send a copy of the resolution to SBOA so we know who is responsible for the submission of the Annual Financial Report. 01/15/2013 Gateway Annual Financial Report User Guide