A-87 - The Federal Government Office of Management and Budget Circular OMB A-87 established costing principles intended to apply to local governmental jurisdictions and designed to be generally applicable to all government units that receive grants and/or cost reimbursements or have contracts with the federal government. A-87 has been replaced with the 2 CFR part 200 (See “Uniform Guidance”).
Activity - A specific and distinguishable service performed by one or more organizational components of a government for the purpose of accomplishing a function for which the government is responsible. For example, "food inspections" is an activity performed in the discharge of the "health" function.
Adopted Final Budget - The budget document formally approved by the Board of Supervisors after the required public hearings and deliberations on the Proposed Budget.
Adopted Proposed Budget - The budget document formally approved by the Board of Supervisors to serve as the basis for public hearings prior to the determination of the adopted final budget.
Allocation Basis - The basis upon which an entity allocates its indirect costs.
Appropriation for Contingencies - A budgetary provision representing that portion of the financing requirements set aside to meet unforeseen expenditure requirements.
Arbitrage - The simultaneous purchase and sale of the same or an equivalent security in order to profit from price discrepancies. In government finance, the most common occurrence of arbitrage involves the investment of the proceeds from the sale of tax-exempt securities in a taxable money market instrument that yields a higher rate, resulting in interest revenue in excess of interest costs.
Assessed Valuation - A valuation set upon real estate or other property by a government as a basis for levying taxes.
Audit - A methodical examination of utilization of resources that concludes in a written report of its findings. An audit is a test of management's accounting system to determine the extent to which internal accounting controls are both available and being used.
Available Financing - In governmental fund types, the sum of the components which are available to meet the financing requirements for the accounting period involved. It includes unreserved/undesignated fund balance, decreases in reserves and designations, revenues, other financing sources, and inbound transfers.
Billing Rate - A temporary indirect cost rate applicable to specified period which is used for funding. Also known as a “Provisional Rate.”
Budget - A plan of financial operation embodying an estimate of proposed expenditures for a given period and the proposed means of financing them.
CAO Recommended Budget - The budget document recommended to the Board of Supervisors by the County Administrative Officer as the proposed budget.
Capital Asset - Long-lived tangible assets obtained or controlled as a result of past transactions, events, or circumstances. Capital assets include buildings, equipment, improvements other than buildings, infrastructure, and land. In the private sector, these assets are referred to most often as property, plant, and equipment.
Capital Expenditures - Expenditures to acquire capital assets or expenditures to make additions improvements, modifications, replacements, rearrangements, reinstallation, renovations, or alterations to capital assets that materially increase their value or useful life.
Capital Projects Fund - A fund created to account for financial resources to be used for the acquisition or construction of major capital facilities.
Central Service Cost Allocation Plan - Documentation identifying, accumulating, and allocating or developing billing rates based on the allowable costs of services provided by a state, local government, or Indian tribe on a centralized basis to its departments and agencies. The costs of these services may be allocated or billed to users.
Central Service Departments - Departments whose primary purpose is to support the other departments or funds within the organization.
Cognizant Agency For Indirect Costs - The federal agency responsible for reviewing, negotiating, and approving cost allocation plans or indirect cost proposals developed on behalf of all federal agencies.
Cost Allocation Plan - A central service cost allocation plan or public assistance cost allocation plan.
Cross-Allocation (Double Step-Down) - The act of performing a second round of allocations to account for funds allocated to receiving departments during the first round of allocations for greater accuracy.
Current Taxes - Taxes levied and becoming due within one year.
Department Requested Budget - The sum of the organizational estimates of revenues and expenditures for the period involved.
Designation - For governmental fund types, a segregation of a portion of the unreserved fund balance to indicate tentative plans for financial resource utilization in a future period, such as for general contingencies and for equipment replacement.
Direct Bills - Credits that are applied to each department that pay for service is performed during the current fiscal year.
Direct Costs - Costs that can be identified specifically with a particular final cost objective, such as a Federal award, or other internally or externally funded activity, or that can be directly assigned to such activities relatively easily with a high degree of accuracy.
Encumbrances - Commitments related to unperformed contracts for goods or services. Used in budgeting, encumbrances are not GAAP expenditures or liabilities, but represent the estimated amount of expenditures ultimately to result if unperformed contracts in process are complete. Encumbrances are a reservation of fund balance.
Enterprise Fund - A fund established to account for operations financed and operated in a manner similar to private business enterprises (e.g., water, gas, and electric utilities; airports; parking garages; or transit systems). The governing body intends that the costs (e.g., expenses, including depreciation) of providing goods or services to the general public on a continuing basis be financed or recovered primarily through user charges.
Estimated Revenue - The amount of revenue estimated to accrue or to be collected during a fiscal period.
Exaction Fee - A fee collected at the time a building permit is issued to mitigate the impact of new development (also referred to as Development Impact Fee).
Expenditures - Decreases in net financial resources. Expenditures include current operating expenses which require the present or future use of net current assets, debt service and capital outlays, and intergovernmental grants, entitlements, and share revenues.
Expenses - Outflows or other using up of assets or incurrence of liabilities (or a combination of both) from delivering or producing goods, rendering services, or carrying out other activities that constitute the entity's ongoing major or central operations.
Federal Awarding Agency - The federal agency that provides a federal award directly to a non-federal entity.
Financial Uses - In governmental fund types, decreases, excluding expenditure refunds, in the net current assets of a fund. "Financing uses" includes expenditures, other financing uses, and transfers out.
Final Rate - An indirect cost rate applicable to specified past period which is based on the actual cost of the period. A Final Rate is not subject to adjustment.
Fiscal Year - A 12-month period to which the annual operating budget applies and at the end of which a government determines its financial position and the results of its operations.
Franchise - A special privilege granted by a government permitting the continued use of public property, such as city streets, and usually involving the elements of monopoly and regulation.
Function - A group of related activities aimed at accomplishing a major service or regulatory program for which a government is responsible. For example, public health is a function.
Fund - A fiscal and accounting entity with a self-balancing set of accounts in which cash and other financial resources, all related liabilities and equities, or balances, and changes therein, are recorded and segregated to carry on specific activities or attain certain objectives in accordance with special regulations, restrictions, or limitations.
Fund Balance/Fund Equity - The difference between fund assets and fund liabilities of governmental funds.
General Fund - The fund used to account for all financial resources, except those required to be accounted for in another fund.
General Reserve - A fund equity restriction to provide for dry period financing.
Grants - Contributions or gifts of cash or other assets from another government to be used or expended for a specified purpose, activity, or facility.
Indirect (F&A) Costs - Costs incurred for a common or joint purpose benefiting more than one cost objective, and not readily assignable to the cost objective specifically benefitted, without effort disproportionate to the results achieved.
Indirect Cost Pool - Accumulated costs that jointly benefit two or more programs or other cost objectives.
Indirect Cost Rate Proposal - Documentation prepared by a non-federal entity to substantiate its request for the establishment of an indirect cost rate.
Imprest Cash - An account into which a fixed amount of money is placed for the purpose of minor disbursements or disbursements for a specific purpose (e.g., change fund).
Improvements - Buildings, other structures, and other attachments or annexations to land which are intended to remain so attached or annexed, such as sidewalks, trees, driveways, tunnels, drains, and sewers.
Interfund Transfers - Transfers between funds of the same government reporting entity.
Intrafund Transfers - Transfers between operating units in the same governmental type fund.
Intergovernmental Revenues - Revenues from other governments in the form of grants, entitlements, shared revenues, or payments in-lieu of taxes.
Local Government - Any unit of government within a state, including; county, borough, municipality, city, town, township, parish, local public authority, special district, school district, intrastate district, or council of governments.
Long-Term Debt - Long-Term debt (term greater than one year) expected to be repaid from governmental funds.
Maintenance - The act of keeping capital assets in a state of good repair. It includes preventative maintenance; normal periodic repairs; replacement of parts, structural components and so forth; and other activities needed to maintain the asset so that it continues to provide normal services and achieves its optimum life.
Non-Departmental - Revenues and expenses not specific to a single department are reflected in this General Fund budget unit (e.g., property taxes).
Non-Federal Entity - A state, local government, Indian tribe, institution or high education (IHE), or nonprofit organization that carries out a federal award as a recipient or subrecipient.
Other Financing Source - An increase in current financial resources that is reported separately from revenues to avoid distorting revenue trends.
Other Financing Use - A decrease in current financial resources that is reported separately from expenditures to avoid distorting expenditure trends.
Pass-Through Entity - A non-federal entity that provides a subaward to a subrecipient to carry out a part of a Federal program. Responsible for monitoring overall funding as well as progress.
Payment In-Lieu of Taxes - A payment that a property owner not subject to taxation makes to a government to compensate it for services that the property owner receives that normally are financed through property taxes.
Provisional Rate - A temporary indirect cost rate applicable to specified period which is used for funding. Also known as a “Billing Rate.”
Public Employee Retirement System - A state or local government entity entrusted with administering one or more pension plans.
Receiving Departments - Departments which receive costs for services performed for their benefit.
Reserved Fund Balance - Those portions of fund balance that are not appropriable for expenditure or that are legally segregated for a specific future use (e.g., Fund Balance - Reserved for Encumbrances).
Restricted Funds - Funds received with a donor-imposed restriction that states that the donation must be maintained permanently.
Revolving Loan - A segment of the CDBG and CSBG housing grants. Payments against existing loans are transferred at fiscal year-end to the revolving loan for future loans.
SB933 - A Senate bill passed in 1998, mandating that foster children be visited each and every month when placed in either out-of-state or in-state group home facilities. Prior to SB933, only two visits a year were required.
Single Audit (Yellow Book) - The Single Audit Act of 1984 was passed in order to ensure the guideline compliance of non-federal entities receiving federal funding. The new Uniform Guidance released by OMB in 2013, has changed the Single Audit Circular A-133 into Subpart F for non-federal entities.
Special District - An independent unit of local government organized to perform a single government function or a restricted number of related functions. Special districts usually have the power to incur debt and levy taxes; however, certain types of special districts are entirely dependent upon enterprise earnings and cannot impose taxes. Examples of special districts are water districts, hospital districts, and fire protection districts.
Special Revenue Fund - A governmental fund used to account for the proceeds of specific revenue sources (other than for major capital projects) that are legally restricted to expenditure for specified purposes.
State Proposition 36 - A State initiative passed by the voters in 2000 requiring probation and drug treatment programs, not incarceration, for conviction of possession, use, transportation for personal use or being under the influence of controlled substances, and similar parole violations, not including sale or manufacture.
Subrecipient - A non-federal entity that receives a subaward from a pass-through entity to carry out part of a federal program; but does not include an individual that is a beneficiary of such program. A subrecipient may also be a recipient of other federal awards directly from a federal awarding agency.
Tax Anticipation Notes - Notes or warrants issued in anticipation of collection of taxes, usually returned only from tax collections, and frequently only from the proceeds of the tax levy whose collection they anticipate.
Tax Rate - The amount of tax stated in terms of a unit of the tax base (e.g., 25 mills per dollar of assessed valuation of taxable property).
Taxes - Compulsory charges levied by a government to finance services performed for the common benefit. This term does not include specific charges made against particular persons or property for current or permanent benefits, such as special assessments. Neither does the term include charges for services rendered only to those paying such charges (e.g., sewer service charges).
Teeter - An alternative method of distribution of tax levies and collections and of tax sale proceeds known as the "Teeter Plan" (chapter 3 of the Revenue and Taxation Code beginning with section 4701).
Temporarily Restricted Fund - Funds that were received with a donor-imposed restriction that will be satisfied in the future (generally within one year). The donor imposed restriction may be for a particular purpose or program or for use in a specified time period.
Uniform Guidance 2 CFR part 200 - OMB’s guidance for cost principles and audit requirements for federal awards, including grants. This guidance supersedes the requirements from OMB Circulars A-21, A-87, A-110, and A-122 (which have been placed in 2 CFR Parts 220, 225, 215, and 230); Circulars A-89, A-102, and A-133; and the Circular A-50 on Single Audit Act follow-up.
Unitary Tax - An annual assessment by the California Board of Equalization on property, except franchises, owned or used by regulated railway, telegraph, or telephone companies, car companies operating on railways in the state, and companies transmitting or selling gas or electricity. The taxes are levied and collected in the same manner as for county-assessed property.
Unrestricted Funds - Funds that have no donor-imposed restrictions.