The City of Paducah has released its Popular Annual Financial Report (PAFR) for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023. This is the first year for the City of Paducah to create a PAFR. This 12-page report provides citizens summarized financial data in a user-friendly format to increase awareness and knowledge of Paducah’s operations.
Mayor George Bray said, “One of my goals as mayor is to ensure transparency of city government in all that we do. Transparency is not only making information available to citizenry but also providing that information in a format that is easier to understand. This is particularly true of financial information that can be difficult to understand for many of us. I want to thank the City of Paducah’s Finance Department for taking on the challenging task of reducing complex financial information into a document that tells Paducah’s financial story. I encourage everyone to spend a few minutes reviewing the City’s PAFR. Feel free to ask questions that may arise by emailing Finance Director Jonathan Perkins.”
Each year, the City of Paducah creates an Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) which includes the legally-required audit. The ACRF is lengthy and more challenging to follow with the most recent edition nearly 200 pages. However, thee 12-page PAFR is streamlined and written for those who don’t have a finance or accounting background.
City Manager Daron Jordan said, “The FY2023 City of Paducah PAFR provides information about Paducah’s revenues, expenditures, and debt liabilities. It also breaks down how public funds are being distributed to various city functions like public safety, public services, debt service, and others. This document embraces financial transparency and Paducah’s commitment to our citizens that we value their trust in us to be good financial stewards of public dollars.”
Finance Director Jonathan W. Perkins said, “The PAFR is a snapshot of the City’s finances that will assist you in gaining a better understanding of how the government is putting your tax dollars to use. The short format provides information about revenue sources, allocating of tax dollars by expense category, an analysis of debt, benchmarks to other communities, and projects of interest. I want to thank City of Paducah Controller Audra Kyle for compiling the PAFR. Reducing complex financial information into short paragraphs and easy-to-read charts and graphs is a difficult task, and Audra was up to the challenge.”
A few of the key financial highlights are as follows:
- Paducah’s Statement of Net Position significantly increased for FY2023, a more than $13 million increase as compared to FY2022. Net position is the difference between what the city owns and what the city owes.
- The City’s major revenues increased in FY2023 as compared to FY2022.
- Public Safety (police and fire protection and prevention) totaled $26.3 million or 47 percent of governmental expenses.
- Paducah’s total long-term outstanding debt at the end of FY2023 was $39.7 million.
- Several significant community projects are underway including the Paducah Sports Park, 911 radio equipment upgrade, and the future riverfront improvements associate with the BUILD grant.
The City of Paducah is submitting this first edition PAFR to the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada (GFOA) for an award. Judges will be reviewing the document’s understandability and reader appeal among other factors. Regarding the City’s more comprehensive document, the ACFR, the GFOA has awarded Paducah a Certificate of Excellence for 32 consecutive years.
The GFOA established the Popular Annual Financial Reporting Awards Program (PAFR Program) in 1991 to encourage and assist state and local governments to extract information from their annual comprehensive financial report to produce high quality popular annual financial reports specifically designed to be readily accessible and easily understandable to the general public and other interested parties without a background in public finance and then to recognize individual governments that are successful in achieving that goal.
If you have a question about the financial information, email Finance Director Jonathan Perkins.
