Finance Toolkit

Walking Tightrope County leaders across South Carolina—and throughout the nation—have faced ongoing challenges in recruiting and retaining qualified finance officers and staff. To better understand these issues and identify potential solutions, SCAC recently convened a series of public finance roundtables. These sessions brought together county administrators, finance officers, and representatives from national Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), the Government Finance Officers South Carolina chapter (GFOASC), and auditing firms to share experiences, explore key challenges, and discuss effective strategies.

This toolkit has been developed to offer practical resources and support for counties navigating these workforce and financial management challenges.

Finance Certification Options

Finance officers and staff have two certification options—the Certified Government Finance Officer (CGFO) from GFOASC and the Certified Public Finance Officer (CPFO) from national GFOA.

Explore these certifications in our helpful overviews:

News/Articles

Balancing the Shortfall in the Public Finance Talent Shortage(opens in a new tab) (County Focus, Fall 2025)

Supplemental Staffing and Fractional Operations Model by Warren Hutmacher of Sumter Consulting(opens in a new tab) (County Focus, Fall 2025).

Short Term Interims Help You Think Long Term article by Ron Holifield of Civic Marketplace(opens in a new tab) (County Focus, Fall 2025).

Navigating the Talent Shortage (PDF, 11.98 MB)(opens in a new tab) (Government Finance Review, June 2023, GFOA, gfoa.org/gfr(opens in a new tab))

The Next Generation of Public Finance (PDF, 4.26 MB)(opens in a new tab), (Government Finance Review, February 2025,GFOA, gfoa.org/gfr(opens in a new tab))

National Resources

GFOA(opens in a new tab) offers a variety of resources to members. Learn about:

Membership(opens in a new tab)
Educational Resources(opens in a new tab)
CPFO certification(opens in a new tab)
GFOA Learning Pathways(opens in a new tab)
- GFOA Learning Pathways is a tool designed to help GFOA members advance in their careers by building the skills needed to succeed in current roles and preparing for future opportunities while strengthening the finance capacity of their organizations. The first three pathways, Accounting, Budgeting, and Debt Management are now available. Additional pathways in other areas of public finance will follow soon.

Relevant Publications

Meeting Demand for State and Local Public Finance Jobs Report, by GFOA (PDF, 4.13 MB)(opens in a new tab) (PDF)

South Carolina Resources

New: Introductory Accounting Courses

GFOASC now offers introductory course in accounting designed to help participants build a working knowledge and solid foundation of government finance principles. They are offered by the University of South Carolina's Office of Continuing Education and Conferences.

Courses are:

Fundamentals of Financial Accounting
Introduction to Governmental Accounting

Course Completion: At the conclusion of each five-day course, participants will complete an examination demonstrating understanding of the material presented. Participants who successfully complete the course and examination will be awarded a certificate of proficiency.

Questions? Contact USC at (803) 777-9444 or pep@mailbox.sc.edu

Early registration is highly recommended, however, registration will be open until a class reaches max enrollment.

Learn more in the course brochure(opens in a new tab).

Register(opens in a new tab)

Explore GFOASC(opens in a new tab):

SCAC Resources

Potential Interims – Contact SCAC staff for a list of retired South Carolina finance officers who are available to serve on an interim basis.

Finance Officers’ Listserv – The SC County Finance Directors google group is an on online and email-based talk forum for county finance officers to post questions, discuss topics, and exchange county finance related-information with their professional colleagues from counties throughout the state. Hosted by SCAC, all South Carolina county finance directors and their designees are invited to participate. Please reach out to Susan Turkopuls at sturkopuls@scac.sc(opens in a new tab) for more information or to submit a request to be added to this this talk group.

Online Career Center – The Association posts open positions for local governments free of charge up to six months.

Questions?

For additional information or questions, please contact Susan Turkopuls, SCAC Director of Research and Training, at sturkopuls@scac.sc.