The City of Biloxi has received commendations from national and state rating agencies in two key oversight areas: financial management and building code enforcement.
The Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada, which oversees 14,000 government financial professionals, has awarded the city a Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting for the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.
The CAFR is a 120-page full-color document that uses graphs, charts and balance sheets to provide detailed financial information on the city, and Biloxi’s publication, the national rating agency said, demonstrates a “spirit of full disclosure to clearly demonstrate the city’s financial story and motivate potential users and user groups to read the report.”
The certificate of excellence is the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting, and Biloxi joins Gulfport as the only Coast agency to have received the award.
Biloxi’s building codes and the city’s efforts to enforce those codes have been recognized by the Mississippi State Rating Bureau as among the best-rated in the state. The accolade will help the city in its efforts to reduce flood-insurance rates – and eventually overall property insurance rates – for residential and commercial property.
The rating bureau rated Biloxi building code and its enforcement efforts as a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best. Biloxi joins only three other Mississippi cities to achieve a 4 rating: Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Madison.
“We’re proud of these two honors,” Mayor A.J. Holloway said. “I want to commend the members of our Finance and Building Divisions who worked to achieve these levels of excellence. These two independent report cards say that we are doing things right here in Biloxi, and we’re doing them with integrity, accountability and professionalism. Our goal now is to continue to maintain this quality of work so that it will translate into savings through lower insurance rates for our residents and better interest rates for the city.”
- To see the city’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, click here
- For more info on the rating bureau’s building code enforecement program, click here.
