Chapter Meetings/Annual Conference Tips

My first experience interacting with commercial partners was at the CSMFO San Gabriel Valley Chapter luncheon meetings about 25 years ago, when I worked for City of Burbank handling budget and debt. These meetings were great networking opportunities and well attended by both municipal and commercial members. I will admit that seeing a table full of vendors sometimes was a bit daunting, as I saw it as a dreaded sales pitch. However, in most cases, the conversations turned out to be very informative, helping to educate me about a wide variety of topics. One commercial member assisted me with audit contract language to allow for special projects such or agreed upon procedures work, while another helped me learn about the RFP vs RFQ processes when I needed to replace our corporate trust provider.

What if a Chapter or Conference Session is not a topic that is relevant to your current job? Perhaps you tend to pass on a GASB session if you are not on the accounting side, but I encourage you to think bigger and broaden your knowledge. If your agency practices succession planning, or if you are a mid-level professional that wants to become a director, having familiarity with these topics could make a difference in an interview for those looking to level up. I can personally vouch for this, as one of my later positions as a Finance Manager had me writing the ACFR and approving accounting entries.

Even navigating an exhibit hall at the annual conference, I remember thinking so many of these booths are not relevant to me, i.e., my current city is satisfied with our software system, or we will never accept credit cards. But it never hurts to talk to practitioners who can provide you with information and new ideas that you can refer to if there comes a point in the future that you do need to explore these services.

My first Finance Director job was at a small city of only 50 employees, where I needed to roll up my sleeves and work in all aspects of finance. When I walked in the door, I found out the majority of our financial resources were frozen due to a lawsuit, and the city needed to pay employees, PERS, taxes, and vendors. Thankfully, my debt experience in Burbank had me reviewing bond documents and working with a team that had included a financial advisor and bond counsel, and I was able to lean on those relationships to reach out to find out my options.

From this and a future experience, I learned about private placement loans/bonds and developed a one-year cashflow to indicate the ability to repay a short-term loan. On another occasion, the city desired to conduct a transient occupancy tax (TOT) audit for our local motels. Again, I contacted a vendor I met at the CSMFO chapter meeting, and we had lunch to discuss an action plan and potential costs. In both examples, the ability to pick up the phone or email and get the assistance needed was based on having built those relationships in other settings.

Municipal finance professionals are always busy dealing with daily operations and staffing, no matter if you are working at a larger or smaller agency. We often rely on our commercial partners to fill specific roles, whether it be for the annual audit, temporary staffing, debt issuance, investment portfolio management/compliance, or technology needs. From this former Finance Director, it made my job easier relying on subject experts who had continuing education requirements and let me know when I needed to have Council adopt a debt policy to comply with a new state regulation. Now that I’m on the other side of that relationship, I encourage municipal members to build those connections with your commercial partners – you never know when you may need them.

Joan Michaels Aguilar currently works as a Principal at HdL on the sales tax team. Her previous work includes over 41 years in the public sector, most recently as the Deputy City Manager – Administrative Services mentoring staff, managing budget operations, debt administration and technology aspects. Joan began her career in Burbank working in a variety of departments in her 23 years with the city. She has also worked in King City, Azusa and Covina. Joan became active with CSMFO in 1981 while with the City of Burbank. Ms. Aguilar became a CSMFO Northern California Board Member and in 2019, she became CSMFO President. She remains active in CSMFO on the Commercial Partnership, Membership, and Communications Committees and has helped plan several annual conferences. She holds a Master of Public Administration from California State University, Northridge.