118th Annual Conference Sessions: Leadership, Ethics, and Trust
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Sessions for Sunday, June 9
Sunday Keynote: Casey Newton
Casey is the founder and editor of Platformer, an independent publication devoted to exploring the intersection of technology and democracy, including the declining trust in government. He is also co-host of Hard Fork, the critically acclaimed New York Times podcast about technology and the future. Casey’s work focuses on the rise of artificial intelligence, providing commentary on the tech industry’s most important developments, and what it all means for human behavior, politics, and the future that is already here.
Join us to explore artificial intelligence and other tech trends, what it means for your government, and how they will shape the future of work redefining how we interact with our colleagues, peers, and the communities we serve.
Leadership Workshop: GFOA's Budgeting Readiness Assessment
Local governments have long relied on last year’s budget to make incremental, line-item changes around the margins to make next year’s budget. Though this form of budgeting has advantages and can be useful in times of stability, it can also make local governments slow to adapt in times of rapid change, like the volatile and uncertain times we live in today. GFOA’s Rethinking Budgeting initiative considers new ways of thinking, new technologies, and updated practices to better meet the changing needs of communities. GFOA has developed a tool to assess your organization’s readiness to rethink budgeting. At this session, you will learn what it means to rethink budgeting, become familiar with the resources GFOA has developed to do so, and learn how to use the assessment tool in your organization.
Note: This workshop required pre-registration.
Engaging Academic Thinking in the Work of Government with the Public Finance Journal (PFJ)
GFOA has launched the Public Finance Journal (PFJ) to publish scholarly research in the field of public finance. Learn more about this project and hear case studies from the first issue of PFJ, published in Spring of 2024. Learn about efforts and opportunities to build deeper partnerships between practitioners and academics in government finance.
LGBTQIA+ Caucus Networking Meeting
GFOA’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus exists to advocate for its members within the profession and works to increase the visibility of LGBTQIA+ people within GFOA and the profession as a whole. At this session, the Caucus will highlight key issues, discuss the previous year's activities and the results of the remote annual business meeting, and review the plans for the coming year. We encourage all members of the community and allies to attend and make themselves heard.
Black Caucus: Annual Meeting
The Annual Black Caucus Business Meeting will be used to address the business of the Caucus, including the election of new officers. An update on the activity of the Caucus will also be provided to members. Speakers and specific topics for the Black Caucus meeting will be announced at a later date.
Why I'm a Finance Officer
There is no single path to becoming a finance officer. GFOA's 23,000+ members have just as many different motivations, stories, and journeys for how they got to this point in their career. However, they all now share the responsibility for maintaining trust, supporting their community, and working to build sustainable organizations despite increasing pressure from political polarization, workforce challenges, and overall distrust of government. During this session, hear from several finance officers about their career journey, how their experience puts them in a position to deal with current challenges, and what drives their dedication to the profession.
Sessions for Monday, June 10
Monday Keynote: David Brooks
David Brooks is a bestselling author, op-ed columnist at The New York Times, and recurring commentator on PBS NewsHour. He has a gift for bringing readers and audiences alike face to face with the spirit of our times with humor, insight, and quiet passion. He is a keen observer of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs, whose columns are among the most read in the nation.
David is also the author of six books, including The Road to Character and The Second Mountain. His latest release, How to Know a Person, provides lessons for all to build better connections and relationships at home, at work, and in your community. Please plan on joining us in Orlando to discover what questions to ask, what conversations are important, and how you can pay attention to those around you to become more understanding and considerate. Let's move past political polarization, fragmentation, hostility, and misperception to see something in others and, in turn, see something larger in ourselves.
Young Professionals Network: Speed Networking
Open to attendees under 40 years old, this interactive speed networking session is designed for GFOA members to meet and exchange ideas. Small groups will be given time to share thoughts on an issue facing their government, the public finance profession, or topics related to career progression, mentoring, or networking. Attendees can expect to meet other young professionals and begin building relationships that can be leveraged throughout the year.
GFOA will also provide information on the Young Professionals Network and programming that is offered beyond the conference.
On the Campaign Trail: How to Navigate the Politics of Budgeting
Budgeting is hard work, and when politics is thrown into the mix, it's even tougher. Most budget professionals are adept at the technical aspects of budgeting–developing revenue forecasts, counting positions, and estimating spending, but navigating the political landscape is something that many finance professionals try to avoid, usually unsuccessfully. This session will provide tools for navigating political traps, confronting special interests, and earning widespread support for decisions while also building on concepts of equity, fairness, and accountability. Speakers will share examples of how they successfully navigated the politics of budgeting and provide advice on how to hone your political leadership skills.
Small Government Forum: Investing for Small Governments
This event will give GFOA members that work for small governments the opportunity to interact with their peers, exchange experiences and ideas, and make new connections. This year's session will also provide small governments with limited fiscal and/or personnel resources best practices and tools for investing public funds. Discussion of GFOA’s suite of investing best practices from practitioners will be highlighted during this session and tailored specifically for small organizations.
GFOA's Small Government Forum is free for GFOA members from small governments and exists to provide opportunities for networking and exchanging information on topics unique to the needs of managing organizations with limited staff or resources. The Small Government Forum is open to governments serving communities with less than 25,000 people or organizations with less than 500 employees.
We're All in This Together: Getting Public Support for Tough Choices
To achieve the goal of a thriving community, public finance professionals often have to get the public on board with unpopular decisions. Should we raise taxes? Cut services? Conserve natural resources? The answers to these questions can have significant impacts on the quality of life in a community, and the best path forward is rarely the easy one. This session will explore how public finance professionals can establish a common vision for the future to gain support for the tough choices their organizations often need to make.
Building Hispanic Leadership in GFOA
In many communities Hispanic finance professionals are underrepresented when compared to the larger population. As part of GFOA's commitment to diversity and ongoing efforts to build thriving communities, we have partnered with the Local Government Hispanic Network. Together we share important goals to encourage professional excellence among Hispanic/Latino local government administrators, to improve the management of local government, to provide unique resources to Hispanic local government executives and public managers, and to advance the goals of professional, effective and ethical local government administration.
Attend this session to discuss opportunities for Hispanic leadership development at GFOA. Speakers will profile programs available from LGHN and GFOA and highlight careers of leading Hispanic finance officers and local government leaders to provide lessons learned and strategies that can be applied for anyone looking to better serve their community and profession.
Looking in the Mirror: Reflections on Different Leadership Styles
Effective and inspiring leaders are needed at all levels within an organization. You don't have to be a manager or a supervisor to be a leader. Depending on the situation, sometimes you may need to step up and fill a leadership role in your organization. At this session, learn what makes a great leader, how you can develop your leadership skills in different situations, and how to ensure your colleagues' knowledge, skills, and experiences are fully utilized to help your organization succeed.
Leadership Workshop: Equity and Evidence-Based Budgeting
Many governments have explored “budgeting for equity,” which, broadly defined, means allocating local government resources in a way that is intended to address unfair disparities between different groups of people, such as racial groups or income groups. However, many also find the practical application much more difficult and nuanced that anticipated. This workshop will help government leaders approach budgeting for equity with concepts from evidence-based budgeting to define and identify program effectiveness and create an environment that leads to an decision-making processes. This session will focus on economic mobility, and attendees will explore examples and strategies for building a budget framework that leads to better and more equitable outcomes for the whole community.
Note: This workshop required pre-registration.
Women's Public Finance Network: Fostering Connection and Belonging
The purpose of GFOA's Women's Public Finance Network (WPFN) is to foster the careers of women in public finance through education, networking, and mentoring opportunities. This session will focus on WPFN's 2024-2025 theme, which is "You are a Leader." Attendees will learn about the value of membership in WPFN, the skills needed for leading in the next decade, and professional growth opportunities. Speakers will examine leadership in relation to skills, self, communication, and collaboration.
Sunshine on GFOA's Latest Initiatives: Collaborating with GFOA State and Provincial Associations
Join us for an engaging session as the GFOA team provides the latest updates from GFOA and new opportunities for your organization to engage and take advantage of new programs and resources. Presenters will discuss membership, the CPFO Program, and host a discussion to provide feedback on potential future ideas for collaboration. Attendees will also hear about the unique Western States partnership. If you’re involved with a GFOA state and/or provincial association, don’t miss this opportunity to learn more and connect with your peers!
Sessions for Tuesday, June 11
Tuesday Keynote: Rana Foroohar
Rana Foroohar is a global business columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times and a global economic analyst at CNN. Rana is also the author of three critically acclaimed books, Makers and Takers: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street and Don’t Be Evil: The Case Against Big Tech. Her most recent book, Homecoming: The Path to Prosperity in a Post-Global World explores how globalized economies have led to inequality, economic insecurity, and distrust in institutions and how a new philosophy favoring place-based economics can provide opportunities for local communities to thrive.
Please join us in Orlando to better understand how government finance professionals must understand these dynamics and how they influence our work as public servants, decision makers, and leaders.
The Language of Numbers: How to Clearly Communicate
Numbers are at the core of a public finance professional's job, and a big part of the job is communicating those numbers to other people. This is challenging because numbers are abstract concepts. We teach children to count objects, like their fingers and toes, to make number more concrete, but the numbers that finance professionals need to communicate often go well beyond what can be accommodated by fingers and toes. This session will share examples of how we can take a cue from our childhood and communicate numbers more effectively by relating them to human experience.
Leadership Workshop: Developing Skills to Lead
To be an effective chief financial officer (CFO), you need more than technical skills and knowledge. You also need to be able to navigate politics, communicate complex information, guide decision-making, and lead teams through times of change, uncertainty, and crisis. At this session, you will hear from a panel of chief executives about what they are looking for in a CFO and other leadership positions in government, including the different types of challenges they expect leaders to be able to manage. You will also learn how to prepare for an interviews, navigate more complex hiring processes, and demonstrate you have what it takes. This session will also allow attendees to practice interviewing skills with your peers.
Note: This workshop required pre-registration.
Sessions for Wednesday, June 12
You've Got a Friend in Me: The Benefits of Succession Planning and Mentoring
It is often said that a great leader leaves their workplace in better shape than they found it. As someone in public finance, leaders have many opportunities to not only improve their organization, but also the people around them. In this session, you will learn how to start succession planning and mentoring initiatives in your organization and how you can not only prepare your successor to replace you, but also create a more cohesive team while you are still there. Speakers will provide practical strategies that leaders at all levels can initiate that will result in more resilient, flexible, and sustainable organizations.
Do You Trust Me?
People need to be able to believe what they hear about their government and its finances. They need to be confident that local leaders have the community’s best interest at heart and that finance professionals are effective stewards of public funds. They also need to trust that the government can transform their hard-earned resources into something of value. At this session, you will hear real-life stories from finance professionals and how they've won (or lost) trust through their careers. Speakers will provide tips for attendees to assess their own level of trust and practical strategies for beginning to work on building trust both internally and externally.
