The Federation of Tax Administrators (FTA) has named the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance as the winner of its 2013 Award for Outstanding Management Program.

The FTA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality of state tax administration.  The Federation recognized the Department for its innovative enterprise-wide approach to risk management. 

The Department’s Office of Risk Management was established in January 2012 in recognition of the Department’s complex statutory obligations and critical nature of its operations.  The Office works to raise awareness and help managers identify and mitigate potential risk exposures.

The FTA commended the Department for approaching risk management “systematically” rather than in a piecemeal way, noting that “the topic is the most compelling of all issues facing tax agencies.”

“We believe our enterprise risk management model is unique in the context of state or federal agencies with similar missions and we have been encouraged by our progress to date,” said Commissioner of Taxation and Finance Thomas H. Mattox.  “For that reason, we’re particularly proud of this award.  It demonstrates that the Department’s prioritization of addressing top risks with respect to people, processes, technology, and events is already producing – and will continue to produce – measurable results.”

Such risk management tactics include adequately protecting confidential information contained in more than 25 million tax returns and documents filed annually, accurately and securely processing transactions on a variety of electronic and paper-based platforms and reacting to natural disasters (Hurricane Sandy, for example).

The FTA said the award was the unanimous decision of the judges.  They saw the risk management transformation as a considerable achievement given the size, breadth and complexity of the Department.

The Department and its management team have recently been honored with numerous awards and recognition, including:

• Gartner Research’s Business Process Management Excellence Award
• FTA’s 2012 Leadership Award – Nonie Manion, Audit Director
• Government Technology Magazine’s State CIO of the Year - Brian Digman
• InformationWeek’s Government Information Technology Innovators Award

For more information:

• Tax Department homepage - www.tax.ny.gov
• Federation of Tax Administrators - www.taxadmin.org
• Follow us on Twitter and YouTube