FOLEY — For the second year in a row, Foley’s Finance Division has received the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting.

Finance Division recently prepared a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for submission to the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) in hopes of earning the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting.

Last week, Finance Director Sue Steigerwald announced to the city council that the city’s 2014 CAFR met the criteria and high standards of the GFOA’s award program.

Steigerwald said the city’s CAFR demonstrated full financial disclosure and transparency — information that would be useful to rating agencies, debtors, citizens and those interested in relocating to Foley.

The Finance Division also received an Award of Financial Reporting Achievement.

Steigerwald said both honors are the result of the support of the city’s leadership as well as the hard work of everyone in her department.

“To me, it just means that first of all, we have received the support of the Mayor and city council,” Steigerwald said. “And I have a great staff here and it is what they do everyday. It is their accountability and attention to detail they bring to work everyday that make this possible.”

Steigerwald’s department handles much more than

“In addition to financial reporting we have project management, asset management, we pay all the bills of the city, we are the purchasing division, we manage the municipal airport, we handle all the risk and casualty for the city and we handle emergency management,” said Steigerwald.

Steigerwald received a round of applause when she announced the division’s high honors at a recent council meeting, and the praise continued after the meeting had ended.

City Administrator Michael Thompson said the city would benefit from the hard work Steigerwald and her department put into completing the highly detailed CAFR report.

“Not only do we report more detail, holding ourselves to a higher standard instills confidence in what we report, to both our citizens and to financial entities such as rating agencies that rate our bonds,” Thompson said. “If they are confident in our city and our management practices then we generally gain a better rating, which lowers the cost of borrowing to the city.”

Locally, Daphne, Fairhope and Gulf Shores also compile CAFR reports annually.

“There are just 17 cities across the state that hold themselves to this higher standard and with 500 plus incorporated cities in the state, that is pretty impressive in my opinion,” Thompson said.