Accountant Jobs

About the Department
The City of Goleta’s Finance Department oversees the City’s financial operations and is responsible for the overall financial system, ensuring the integrity of the City’s finances through accurate planning and recording of transactions, including providing superior financial services, maintaining the public trust, and promoting governmental efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability.
About the Position
The Finance Department is currently seeking to fill one (1) full time vacancy for Accountant.
The ideal candidate will have knowledge of various aspects of municipal finance, including but not limited to budgeting, accounting, auditing, and financial reporting requirements. The ideal candidate will be detail-oriented, a problem-solver and be able to work independently and in a team. Excellent communication skills both written and oral are essential along with proficiency in Microsoft Word and Excel. Successful candidates must have strong Excel experience, including Pivot Tables, Conditional Formatting, Index/Match, and generic data analysis involving hundreds of rows.
The Accountant performs a variety of professional level accounting duties involved in preparing, maintaining, analyzing, verifying, and reconciling financial transactions, statements, records, and reports; performs duties in the any of the following areas as assigned and directed: of general ledger accounting; payroll; cash management and investment accounting; budgeting and capital asset, cost accounting, and construction in process accounting; preparation of the State Controllers report as well as the City's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report; and provides responsible staff assistance to assigned management staff.

Participates in planning, developing and implementing City accounting and financial record-keeping procedures and systems; maintains accounts and records in a complex automated system; prepares or reviews source documents for entry; prepares or reviews expenditure source documents for payment; classifies revenue and cash receipt items; prepares journal entries.
Participates in budget preparation; reviews budget requests submitted by other departments; compiles information; monitors variances monthly, yearly and as needed; makes recommendations as necessary.
Assists with the coordination of all audits of financial records with external auditors; prepares all audit schedules and work papers; assists in the preparation of year-end financial statements and supporting supplemental schedules, as well as financial reports for submission to the State Controller and other agencies.
Maintains and reconciles the City's general ledger accounting system; prepares monthly and year-end journal entries; performs monthly accounting and bank/investment reconciliations; prepares and distributes departmental reports.
Prepares a variety of financial and statistical reports; locates and compiles information; determines proper format for finished reports; analyzes accounts and presents results.
Provides assistance to management and City staff regarding financial and budgetary matters; researches and analyzes technical data.
Assists in resolving work problems and interpreting administrative policies to subordinates, other departments, consultants, contractors and the public.
Responds to inquiries in person or by phone, providing explanation of established procedures and work unit policies which may require the use of judgment; corresponds with vendors, businesses, or the public according to established procedure; coordinates and manages miscellaneous billings and collections.

Any combination of experience and training that would likely provide the required knowledge and abilities is qualifying. A typical way to obtain the knowledge and abilities would be:
Education:

• Equivalent to a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with major course work in public or business administration, accounting, or closely related field.

• Two years of increasingly responsible professional accounting experience. Public agency experience is desirable.

The City of Goleta Finance Department offers flexible scheduling and a hybrid workplace. After an in-person training period, many employees have the option to work remotely up to 3 days per week with at least 2 days at City Hall, depending on the assigned tasks.
Please see Benefits tab for details on the City's generous benefits program.