Managing change is one constant in a public finance officer's job, said incoming Government Finance Officers Association president Terri Velasquez, who takes the helm at a volatile time for government finance.
Velasquez, the finance director of Aurora, Colorado, assumes the post after being elected by the GFOA last July.
Her one-year term begins during an unpredictable post-pandemic landscape. Finance officers are enjoying a record influx of federal money, but are buried in first-time tasks like managing the dollars, competing for infrastructure grants and complying with new federal requirements.
At the same time, national challenges like labor shortages, inflation and other economic uncertainties threaten to derail a full recovery.
As a finance officer, “you have to be willing and flexible and understand that priorities change, and can change very frequently,” said Velasquez. “Another challenge is looking out to the future. We’re all hearing more concerns about inflation or a recession. That makes it more challenging to budget, to not be too conservative and provide enough resources to ensure that we’re meeting the goals of the leadership and the city council and the needs of the community.”
Velasquez has been a finance director or deputy director for 17 years, serving in Colorado’s second- and third-largest cities, Colorado Springs and Aurora.
Under her leadership, Aurora in 2019 won an upgrade to a coveted Aaa rating from Moody’s Investors Service.
For the past two years, the GFOA has been heavily involved in helping its members manage stimulus packages enacted since the 2020 onset of COVID-19, including $350 billion in direct funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, which can be spent until 2026. The association has also started to focus on implementation of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Velasquez said her goals range from continuing that work to boosting the GFOA's diversity and equity programming to promoting its revamped certified public finance officer program.
She also hopes to pursue an effort to improve U.S. infrastructure public accounting.
On the cusp of what the Biden Administration has dubbed a generational infrastructure investment, it’s a “key time” to review infrastructure asset accounting practices, she said.
Fresh from a May trip to Australia, where she attended the International Public Works Conference in Australia, Velasquez said she learned a lot about differences in asset management policies and accounting, and how the U.S. could enhance its bookkeeping practices to better reflect the condition of its public assets. She sat on a panel titled “Sustainable Asset Management,” marking the GFOA’s first formal appearance at the conference, and said she now plans to “debrief with the GFOA to see what lessons can be taken from my experience and applied by the GFOA.”
Much of the infrastructure money will be allocated in competitive grant programs, meaning that local governments – particularly smaller ones – will need to boost their grant-writing game to win a piece of the funding. The White House has encouraged states and cities to hire infrastructure coordinators to help implement the five-year program.
Aurora hired a pair of grant specialists to help manage its roughly $65 million of ARPA funds, Velasquez said. The hires have helped the city navigate federal requirements and coordinate spending with the City Council.
Velasquez also wants to create a framework to include diversity, equity and inclusion efforts throughout GFOA's programs and services, Velasquez said. Last year, under her initiative, the executive board formed a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. And this year’s conference, i 116th, will feature a plethora of DEI sessions, including “Case Studies in Budgeting: Focus on Equity,” and “Inclusive Communication Strategies for the CFO.”
“We’d like to see the DEI effort be part of the fabric of the GFOA,” she said. “I feel strongly about engaging the membership and making sure we’re hearing everyone’s voice and that people feel a sense of belonging.”
The Colorado native has served for years on various GFOA committees, including the Women’s Public Finance Network and the executive board for the past three years before becoming president-elect.
As finance director of a western state, Velasquez has a front-row seat to some of the climate-related challenges that most governments will face in the coming years.
Water conservation has become a major issue, for example.
“We’re in a 1,200-year drought,” Velasquez noted. The city, which owns its water and sewer enterprise, has worked hard over the last few years on issues like water conservation, she said.
Before joining Aurora’s department, Velasquez was finance director at Colorado Springs for seven years.
Velasquez has two daughters and seven grandchildren. She likes to travel and spends time biking the more "well-groomed" trails in the Colorado mountains.
She earned an undergraduate degree in accounting and a master’s degree in finance and launched her career at Colorado Springs, where she said she grew to realize the importance of the finance department to citizens' lives.
“The more I understood government finance, the more I came to really appreciate the role and that government finance really does matter and makes a difference,” she said.
