Blog

How Joint CIO–CFO Leadership Transforms Government Reporting

jblack@fhblackinc.com (Jamie Black) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 19:38:35 GMT

Beyond the Report: How Joint CIO–CFO Leadership Can Transform Government Reporting Productivity and Resilience

Across state and local government, core financial and regulatory reporting outputs, such as the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR), Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA), GASB disclosures, and recurring interim financial reporting, remain critical to public accountability. However, the greatest operational risk and opportunity for improvement does not reside in the outputs themselves. It resides in the business processes, controls, and operating models required to produce them.

City of Vernon

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 16:09:07 GMT

The Challenge: Drowning in Complex Legacy Systems & Workarounds

Project:	Consolidated Financial Statement Automation
City:	Vernon, BC
Population:	44, 529 (2021)
Platform:	ARLO

When Elma Hamming, CPA, CMA, joined the City of Vernon, British Columbia as Director of Financial Services in March 2024, she inherited a financial reporting process that was, in her words, a “mishmash due to growth, change, and limited resources.” The city’s previous year-end statements relied on a mix of old legacy solutions and manual Excel workarounds, with comparative data misaligned between systems they were a challenge to audit. A recent transition to a new Workday ERP system in January 2024 further complicated matters, requiring a complete remapping of the general ledger (GL) structure. With a tight timeline, limited budget, staffing shortages, and an audit looming, Elma faced a daunting task: produce accurate, compliant financial statements without overwhelming her team or depending on external auditors to prepare them.

Manual processes were time-consuming and increased the risk of error, pulling focus from strategic priorities like council reporting and long-term financial planning. Elma, who had previously worked with F.H. Black & Company Incorporated at other organizations, turned to FHB and their ARLO solution to transform Vernon’s financial reporting to maximize efficiencies and give the city a strong foundation for the future .

City of Dubuque

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Fri, 16 May 2025 17:35:31 GMT

Simpler, faster, better budgets:
On the right track with the City of Dubuque

City of Walnut Creek ACFR Project

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 18:42:20 GMT

Public sector expertise saves Walnut Creek 1,000+ hours/year & enables ACFR publishing one month earlier than ever

Cincinnati Metro Housing Authority

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:27:08 GMT

Cincinnati Metro Housing Authority chops
months of work per year with FHB + Adra

Pinellas County Clerk's Office ACFR Automation

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Thu, 01 Aug 2024 11:34:38 GMT

Out of the Woods with Pinellas County Comptroller's Office

Project:	ACFR Automation
Organization:	Pinellas County, Florida
Population:	961,739 (2022)
Platform:	Workiva

The Challenge

In sunny Pinellas County, Florida, situated on a 280-square-mile peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, Bill Seiter serves as Assistant Director for the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller’s Finance Division.  

Back in 2018, Bill and his team engaged the help of FHB to implement the best available tool for improving their Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) preparation process. Since then, everything has changed—the report’s size and complexity, as well as the technology available to automate the process. Although the desktop program FHB implemented in 2018 was a major improvement over their prior solution, by 2024, it could no longer support the team’s growing needs. 

The old program was complicated and required a great deal of time to set up and maintain each year, ultimately creating additional work for the team. They also found basic actions, like formatting, unnecessarily difficult.  

By March of 2023, Bill and his team were ready for a better solution. They reached out to FHB, once again, for help selecting and implementing the right tool to further streamline preparation of their annual report, in light of their changing needs. 

“We were looking forward to something a little more user-friendly,” Bill said. His team also sought to better leverage the native capabilities of a new platform. And finally, they wanted a tool that would allow collaboration, so that multiple team members could work on various sections of the report simultaneously.  

After considering available options, the Pinellas team elected to implement Workiva, with the support and guidance of Workiva Elite Partner and public sector specialist, FHB.

The Implementation

Out of the box, Workiva serves as a solid, blank, foundational platform, upon which FHB developed many Public Sector Extensions that enable a faster, more robust implementation; provide enhanced functionality; and maximize automation. FHB’s central extension is a Public Sector Data Model, which includes pre-built tables, queries, chains, and scripts. It can be paired with other extensions to streamline, automate, and simplify workpapers, rounding, adjusting journal entries, data validation, GASB pronouncement automation, Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA) automation, and more. 

How It Went

From the kickoff meeting, to importing the County’s data into Workiva, to replicating their prior year ACFR, the implementation took just 14 weeks.  

“The project was managed really well,” said Bill. FHB Principal Consultant Joy Richardson, CPA, led the implementation initially, followed by Principal Consultant Faith Olanipekun, CPA. “Faith got up to speed quickly. They both seemed to really know [the old software] as well as Workiva,” he said. 

The Clerk’s office was impressed by the responsiveness of Joy, Faith, and the entire team. “They were available and responded to questions within a day, usually within a few hours,” said Justin Hansen, Senior Manager–General Accounting & Reporting.

“From my perspective, the implementation was fantastic.”

–Bill Seiter, Assistant Director

How It's Going

To get a true sense of project outcomes, we regularly follow up with our clients once they complete their first reporting cycle with Workiva. Like all of our clients, Pinellas was highly satisfied with their results. 

“The collaboration was there, especially for the first year, when everybody’s getting used to the software. It was easy to use, and we were done about a week earlier than we were last year. Considering we switched both auditors and software, it turned out really well,” Bill said.  

“Workiva was definitely easier for staff to understand and train on. It's more native to what they know in Word and Excel, and there’s better communication,” he added. 

“Workiva is awesome. And having a foundation in Excel
makes it super easy to use. So, I love it.”

–Shpresa Zenku, Senior Finance Accountant

“It's very risky to have just one or two people who know how to use software that's so important for your process. Workiva gives our staff the opportunity to get more into the preparation. It's a learning tool, it’s a ‘spread out the work’ tool. So, it's not all concentrated on one person. I'm pretty happy with it from that perspective,” Bill said. “Last year (in the old program), it was just me…making all the updates. This year, we had all our accountants here. And we even got our analysts in there helping as well, with the statistical sections,” Justin added.

What does the Pinellas team love about Workiva?
Easy to learn and use	Saves time	Facilitates onboarding
Enables self-sufficiency	Streamlines steps	Promotes collaboration

The University of Texas System

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 14:43:10 GMT

What Starts Here Changes the World:
An Incremental Approach to
System Improvement

State of West Virginia

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 11:57:05 GMT

West Virginia Team Automates
More Than 90% of Budget Book

City of Houston and Houston Airport System

rraymond@fhblackinc.com (Rachel Raymond) — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 21:32:10 GMT

Houston, we have a solution.

Insurance Risk Management vs. Enterprise Risk Management

Ed McCaulley — Wed, 21 Feb 2024 15:28:41 GMT

Comparing and Contrasting Two Approaches

The goal of risk management, in its myriad forms, is to help organizations achieve their objectives by minimizing threats and maximizing opportunities. Prominent approaches include Insurance Risk Management and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). In this blog, we will highlight the similarities and differences between these two strategies.