Can the Leelanau County Board of Commissioners deliver a more legible county budget? It’s a goal board members will strive for as they work to prepare a new spending plan for the 2026 fiscal year. That process kicked off last month, and thanks to a presentation to the board by a retired public administration professor with expertise in local government budgeting, commissioners are approaching the task a little bit differently.

At a meeting August 26 – the board’s second budgeting session of this cycle – commissioners heard a lengthy presentation from Rebecca Hendrick, a Leelanau County resident who retired to the area after a 35-year career in higher education. Most recently, Hendrick served as a professor at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), where her focus as both as a teacher and a researcher “was state and local government budgeting, public finance, and financial management.”

In Hendrick's view, Leelanau County’s budget documents are hardly up to industry best practices.

“Looking at the Leelanau County website, I looked at…the long list of spending items in the spreadsheets that you call your budget,” Hendrick told commissioners. “To be honest, I really can’t figure out what you do, and I can’t really tell much about how much it costs you to do it, either.”

Hendrick urged commissioners to “improve your budget document in order for your constituents and stakeholders to better understand what you do as a county and how much it costs.” Specifically, she recommended that Leelanau County explore the “Distinguished Budget Presentation Award Program,” a recognition pathway offered by the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) and intended “to encourage and assist state and local governments to prepare budget documents of the very highest quality.”

In order to earn the Budget Presentation Award, a unit of government must create a budget document that meets a variety of criteria, many aimed at making budgets easier to understand for the average person, from simple things like including a table of contents or utilizing charts and graphs, to more detailed steps like contextualizing the budget with strategic goals and a budget message “that articulates priorities and issues for the upcoming year.”

GFOA also calls for budgets to communicate details around revenues and revenue sources, debt, fund balances, and long-range financial plans that reach beyond the budget year – all to give a bigger-picture understanding of how money flows through a local government.

Hendrick argued that striving for GFOA best practices in the county budget would “greatly improve the transparency of Leelanau County finances to citizens, and therefore improve your accountability to us.” She also noted that there would be benefits to the Board of Commissioners and other county leadership, stating: “Meeting these criteria will also help you follow more sound financial policies and practices by focusing more on the big revenue and spending picture for the county, future events, and possibilities and opportunities as they might arise. The budget should be a plan that allows local governments to steer the boat of the county rather than simply reacting to revenue and spending events as they happen.”

While commissioners did not commit to going for the GFOA award right away – particularly given that they only have a few months to prepare a new budget for 2026 – reactions to Hendrick’s presentation were largely positive.

“I think this is something we’ll work with our administrator on,” said Board Chair Steve Yoder.

County Administrator Jim Dyer was also upbeat about the potential benefits of pursuing at least some of the GFOA’s best practices.

“What I’m not hearing Rebecca say is that we are spending our money improperly. She is not saying we approve our budget incorrectly,” Dyer noted. “What I am hearing is that we can improve how we communicate that budget and your priorities to the public… I’ve gone out and looked at a number of the municipalities that have won this award…and a lot of them have what I would characterize as a ‘budget explanation.’”

More explanation, Dyer said, could be especially helpful to highlight the way budgetary spending in Leelanau County fluctuates throughout the year.

“You could have something along the lines of, ‘Leelanau County spends something more on law enforcement [in the summer] because of the needs that seasonal residents present to the public.’ That would be one message you could have.” 

Leelanau County does already have at least a little familiarity with the GFOA and its recommendations. Cathy Hartesvelt, the county’s finance director, told commissioners she is a member of the Michigan GFOA, and that she will be “attending a seminar this fall” – and pursuing additional coursework throughout the next two years – to learn more about budgetary best practices.

“I think, together, we can add some of these things to the final budget document that you enact in, hopefully, November,” Dyer concluded.