Words made simple

Glossary

A quick guide to the words used on the boxes. A budget is a plan, while “paid so far” describes money already paid.

Words about the money

Budget: A plan for money a government expects to spend. It is not a list of checks already written.
Fiscal year: The 12-month period a government uses for its budget. Different governments may start their years on different dates.
Net and gross: Gross includes money moved between City funds that can be counted twice. Net removes that repeated money from the City headline.
Appropriation: Permission in a budget to spend up to an amount. It does not prove the money was paid.
Full-time equivalent (FTE): A measure of work hours. Two half-time jobs can add up to one FTE. It does not always count individual people.
Contract: An agreement to buy goods or services. A contract amount is not the same as payments made under it.
Vendor: A business or organization paid to provide goods or services. A payment is not automatically a separate budget line.
Reserve or contingency: Money set aside before its final use is known. Without a matching project list, we leave it as one box.
Negative amount: Money that takes away from a parent total, such as savings or a correction. A negative box is not a negative-size tile.
Counted twice: A separate City memo branch showing money moved between funds. It helps explain the gross total but is not added to the net headline.
Source: A public document or dataset behind a number. Some source records name a document but do not have a direct web link.

In the budget: The amount is printed in a budget, not necessarily spent.
Adds up exactly: The smaller amounts add up to a published total.
Government estimate: The government published an estimate. It is not an exact payment.
Paid so far: Money paid in the period shown on that box. It is not a full-year forecast.
Our estimate: We used a stated method to estimate a split that the budget does not print.
Leftover: The amount left after subtracting known parts from the parent.
Adjustment: An addition or subtraction needed to make totals match.