Employment Resources for Finance Officers

Local governments officials continually rank the ability to recruit qualified finance officers and difficult in filling vacant positions as some of the most significant challenges facing their organizations. At the same time, GFOA has long worked to encourage finance officers to take more of a leadership role within their organization. To help promote both goals, GFOA has developed a series of resources focused on assisting finance officers find open positions and helping local governments recruit for leadership positions, necessary skills for the finance office, and begin preparing the next generation of finance officers.

Model Employment Agreement

Research has shown that direction from authority figures can have a powerful influence over one’s behavior, including pushing people into behaviors they know are wrong. One strategy to counteract this is popularizing employment contracts for finance officers. A contract can provide protections like severance pay and guard against capricious termination. With these protections in place, finance officers may feel better supported in resisting suggestions to behave unethically from people in positions of power.

Therefore, GFOA has developed a model employment contract for finance officers.

Resources for Employers

For both large and small organizations, recruiting for a chief finance officer, or staff within a finance office can be difficult. To help, GFOA has created a series of job templates to define the role of several common positions.