• City of Suffolk Receives Distinguished Budget Presentation Award
  
  

The City of Suffolk Finance Department - Budget & Strategic Planning Division has been awarded a Distinguished Budget Presentation Award by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) for the tenth straight year for its’ 2018/2019 fiscal year annual budget. The award reflects the commitment of the governing body and staff to meeting the highest principles of governmental budgeting.

In order to receive the budget award, the City of Suffolk had to satisfy nationally recognized guidelines for effective budget presentation. These guidelines assess how well the budget serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device. Budget documents must be rated “proficient” in all four categories, and in the fourteen mandatory criteria within those categories, to receive the award.

The Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) is a major professional association servicing the needs of more than 19,000 appointed and elected local, state and provincial-level government officials and other finance practitioners. The GFOA established the Distinguished Budget Presentation Awards Program (Budget Awards Program) in 1984 to encourage and assist state and local governments to prepare budget documents of the very highest quality that reflect both the guidelines established by the National Advisory Council on State and Local Budgeting and the GFOA’s best practices on budgeting and then to recognize individual governments that succeed in achieving that goal.

Documents submitted to the Budget Awards Program are reviewed by selected members of the GFOA professional staff and by outside reviewers with experience in public-sector budgeting. 

• Suffolk Brings Home Top National Night Out Honors

For the fifth time in ten years, the City of Suffolk’s National Night Out event was named best in the nation among communities with a population of 50,000 to 100,000 residents by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW). Suffolk’s 2018 edition of National Night Out saw thousands of individual citizens, neighborhoods, civic groups, businesses, City employees, and City public safety personnel gather to celebrate and say no to crime. 

The City of Suffolk had previously received the number one ranking in 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016. This is the 13^th straight year the City of Suffolk has placed in the top 5 in the nation for National Night Out. Suffolk is also the highest ranking City/County in the State of Virginia.  

National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live.  This event enhances the relationships between neighbors and first responders while bringing back a true sense of community and provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.  

National Night Out 2019 is scheduled for Tuesday, August 6, 2019. For more information on Suffolk’s National Night Out events, visit www.suffolknno.com or www.facebook.com/SuffolkVaNNO.

• Suffolk Human Resources Department Honored With Award

The City of Suffolk’s Human Resources Department was awarded the prestigious 2018 International Public Management Association (IPMA-HR) Agency Award for Excellence – Small Agency at the organization’s International Training Conference and Expo held in Phoenix, Arizona in late September. The Agency Award for Excellence recognizes the overall quality, accomplishments and contributions of an agency’s human resource program that exceeds the normal operation of a “good government human resource program.”

Suffolk’s Human Resources department was cited for the following three programs:
            -  Providing leadership in developing and communicating the Citywide vision and strategic plan adopted by City Council in 2015.
            - Creating a performance management system which links city goals and objectives to employee objectives.
            - Designing and implementing a comprehensive training and change management strategy to support a culture of engagement.
The International Public Management Association for Human Resources is the leading public sector human resource organization in the world. IPMA-HR represents the interests of human resource professionals at all levels and strives to promote excellence in HR management. Since 1906, IPMA-HR has been a resource for comprehensive and timely HR industry news, jobs, policies, resources, education, and professional development opportunities.

• City of Suffolk Receives Recognition for Excellence in Financial Reporting

The Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting has been awarded to the City of Suffolk Finance Department by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) for its comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR) for FY 2017.  The Certificate of Achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management. This is the thirty-fourth consecutive year that the City has received this award. 

The CAFR has been judged by an impartial panel to meet the high standards of the program, which includes demonstrating a constructive “spirit of full disclosure” to clearly communicate its financial story and motivate potential users and user groups to read the CAFR. Suffolk attained a grade of proficient in all 17 grading categories.

The CAFR for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017 is available online at https://www.suffolkva.us/cafr

• City of Suffolk Water Treatment Facility Honored

The City of Suffolk G. Robert House, Jr. Water Treatment Facility was recently recognized by the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water with the 2017 Bronze Award for “Excellence in Granular Media Filtration”. The award was presented in Roanoke on April 11, 2018 and is given to facilities that produced drinking water three times cleaner than required by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Suffolk’s Water Treatment Facility met the stringent criteria set forth in the Virginia Optimization Program goals. These granular filters are used to filter impurities from drinking water. Each one of these online filters exceeded the standard during each month throughout the calendar year 2017.

The G. Robert House Jr. Water Treatment Facility has demonstrated excellence in its day to day operations. This award is a result of the commitment and dedication of the treatment plant’s 27 member team. The team is composed of: ten Class 1 Operators, one Class 3 Operator, five Chemists, eight Maintenance Technicians, two Distribution Operators and the Plant Manager.

The water treatment team performs a multitude of hourly sampling checks and runs more than 200 daily water quality control tests. Their efforts result in the treatment and distribution of high quality drinking water for the citizens of Suffolk.