Consulting Services

GFOA’s Research and Consulting Center (RCC) is nationally recognized for its comprehensive analytical and advisory services, as well as for research on issues specific to state and local governments’ financial, human resource, procurement, payroll and operational management. Since beginning operations in 1977, the RCC has assisted hundreds of cities, counties, public utilities; and other forms of government to create best practice solutions to meet their unique challenges.  

Together with its practitioner-focused, highly skilled staff and unparalleled access to the profession of public management, GFOA leverages its member network, ongoing research initiatives and lessons learned from our past consulting engagements to each new project. As a not-for-profit membership association, our mission-driven orientation means that we place your government's success above all else.

Approximately 20 years ago, GFOA began consulting for enterprise resource planning (ERP) system assessments, procurement, contract negotiation, and implementation advisory services. Our approach to ERP projects focuses on business process improvement, effective governance, and building organizational readiness.

ERP system implementations offer much promise for improving business processes, empowering employees with tools to become more effective, and ultimately transforming the entire organization. With improvements in technology and market trends favoring “cloud technologies,” this shift not only includes business process, but also risk management, organizational roles, and governance. However, implementation of these systems is a complex effort and many organizations struggle to realize many of the promised benefits.

GFOA’s approach to ERP procurement projects is to combine the necessary tasks of the procurement cycle with a focus on organizational readiness and business process improvement. GFOA has worked to evolve its approach based on lessons learned from hundreds of other local government clients to address the primary risks of ERP projects, including:

• Effective project governance and decision making
• Project staffing
• Avoiding temptation to re-create the old system
• Change management 
• Scope realization

GFOA’s approach focuses on business process analysis and improvement prior to an ERP implementation. Many organizations make the mistake by not taking full advantage of the ERP planning and procurement process. Developing an RFP or selecting a new system is the easy part. Making key decisions on defining goals, working to define an achievable scope, properly planning to ensure sufficient resources to carry out the project, and preparing a vision of what you want the future state to look like are critical to a successful ERP project. 

GFOA's Research and Consulting Center begin working with local governments in the area of risk-based reserve analysis in 2008, building from our consulting experience in long-term financial planning and policies. Using a customized approach based on a government's risk factors, GFOA works with local governments to determine the appropriate level of reserves for their circumstances and to identify policies to strengthen their overall reserve strategy.

Local governments have long relied on incremental, line item budgeting where last year’s budget becomes next year’s budget with changes around the margin. Though this form of budgeting has its advantages and can be useful under circumstances of stability, it also has important disadvantages. The primary disadvantage is that it causes local governments to be slow to adapt to changing conditions. The premise of the Rethinking Budgeting initiative is that the public finance profession has an opportunity to update local government budgeting practices to take advantage of new ways of thinking, new technologies, and to better meet the changing needs of communities. GFOA's Rethinking Budgeting Workshops help organizations realize what is possible and how they can take advantage of new research to replace their existing budget process with one focused on collaboration, effective decision making, budgeting best practices, and and a connection to community priorities.

Local governments across the country want their accounting function to meet user needs, provide the support necessary to achieve strategic goals, and assure taxpayers that appropriate financial stewardship is being exercised. Assessment criteria used by the GFOA are based on best practices in local government financial management. In addition to these criteria, GFOA also reviews a "checklist" of factors related to staffing, technology, and the business processes used in that department.