Nobody ever said being an informed citizen (or taxpayer) is easy . . . "Each year, the city's budget is developed in conjunction with residents, the Mayor and City Council, City Manager and City Employees.
The result is a budget that closely matches the community's highest priorities each fiscal year.
. . . Here you'll find the information on the city's budget, financial reports and other city reports."
(Scroll down for the list from this official link >
https://www.mesaaz.gov/city-hall/office-of-management-budget/presentations-reports )
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RESOURCES
GASB, Financial Accounting Standards Board.
Touring the Financial Report, Part II: The Statement of Activities
The preceding article in this issue examined the statement of net assets, one of two accrual-based financial statements introduced by GASB Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements—and Management’s Discussion and Analysis—for State and Local Governments. These statements are significant because they bring together information that previously had been spread among various funds and reported on different accounting bases. This article explores the statement of activities, its unique design, and the information it contains.Overview
As described in the article on the statement of net assets, the government-wide financial statements overcome many of the comparability problems encountered by users of the fund financial statements. ( See that article for a more detailed discussion of what is covered in this overview.) These problems resulted from the fund financial information being spread among multiple financial statements and reported using different bases of accounting.
Touring the Financial Statements, Part III: The Governmental Funds
This article continues a series begun in the last issue reviewing the basic financial statements and other required components of a state or local government's annual financial report. The first two articles covered the financial statements you would initially encounter upon opening a financial report-the government-wide statement of net assets and statement of activities. This article looks at the two required financial statements for the governmental funds—the balance sheet and the statement of revenues, expenditures, and changes in fund balances.
Prior to the implementation of GASB Statement No. 34, Basic Financial Statements—and Management's Discussion and Analysis—for State and Local Governments, governments did not report financial information covering their entire reporting entity. Rather, financial information was disaggregated among a multitude of funds—accounting devices that are used to account for and report specific aspects of a government's financial activities, such as a particular revenue source (education or transportation aid, for instance) or function (for example, capital construction, repaying debt, or water and sewer operations).
There are three groups of funds for which financial statements are prepared—governmental, proprietary, and fiduciary. Proprietary funds are employed to report on activities financed primarily by revenues generated by the activities themselves, such as a municipal utility. Fiduciary funds contain resources held by a government but belonging to individuals or entities other than the government. A prime example is a trust fund for a public employee pension plan.
Governmental funds account for everything else. This is where the bread-and-butter services can be found—police, fire, social services, sanitation, and so on. There are five types of governmental funds:
- The general fund is a government's basic operating fund and accounts for everything not accounted for in another fund.
- Special revenue funds are intended to be used to report specific revenue sources that are limited to being used for a particular purpose, such as transportation aid. In practice, governments also use them to report: all of the financial activities associated with a single function (such as road maintenance); classes of revenues (for example, all federal grants); and "rainy day" resources.
- Debt service funds account for the repayment of debt. If a government is accumulating resources for the purpose of making debt service payments, it should report them in a debt service fund. In reality, some resources intended to finance debt service payments can be found in other governmental funds. Furthermore, debt transactions associated with proprietary and fiduciary activities are accounted for in those funds.
- Capital projects funds account for the construction, rehabilitation, and acquisition of capital assets, such as buildings, equipment, and roads. Governments are not required to account for all capital expenditures in this fund type, however, and therefore it may also appear in the general fund or even special revenue funds.
Several required note disclosures are helpful in understanding the information to be found in the governmental funds financial statements:
If a nonmajor fund had a fund deficit—liabilities exceeded assets—a government should disclose it, since it cannot be seen in the aggregated non-major funds column.
- If the reconciliations aggregate the reconciling items into categories that obscure the individual adjustments, then a government should provide a more detailed reconciliation in the notes.
- The amount of time after the end of the fiscal year during which collections can be considered available and thus recorded as revenue is called the period of availability. Although accounting standards specify that the period of availability for property taxes is 60 days, they are silent on other revenues. Governments should disclose in the summary of significant accounting policies (usually the first note disclosure) the length of time it used to define availability for its other revenues.
- Governments are required to present two notes related to financial activity among the funds:
- One discloses interfund balances as of the end of the year—amounts due to and from each of the columns in the fund financial statements (including not only the governmental funds, but also the proprietary and fiduciary funds). Governments will describe the purposes for the interfund balances and identify any that are not expected to be repaid within a year.
- The other discloses interfund transfers during the fiscal year—amounts transferred among the fund columns. This disclosure should also describe why the transfers were made and will single out transfers that do not occur on a routine basis or that are inconsistent with the activities of the fund making the transfer.
- One discloses interfund balances as of the end of the year—amounts due to and from each of the columns in the fund financial statements (including not only the governmental funds, but also the proprietary and fiduciary funds). Governments will describe the purposes for the interfund balances and identify any that are not expected to be repaid within a year.
Governments are required to prepare a budgetary comparison schedule that tracks the progress over the course of the fiscal year of the general fund and of each major special revenue fund for which a government legally adopts a budget . . .
Further Reading
- An Analyst’s Guide to Government Financial Statements
- What Else You Should Know about a Government’s Finances: A Guide to Notes to the Financial Statements and Supporting Information
Enterprise Fund Review
[1.19 MB :Power Point Presentation)
May 9, 2019
Candace Cannistraro, Management and Budget Director
Brian A. Ritschel, Management and Budget Deputy Director
[Blogger Note: Image insert for editorial comment]
Purpose of the Enterprise Fund
• Enterprise Fund sells goods and services to customers rather than the general public
• Supports the core purposes of the City
• Operate like a business with revenues covering most, if not all, the costs associated with providing the service. Portion of income dedicated to general governmental services
Core Purposes of the City
Public Safety Quality of Life Economic Development
> Public Safety
• Law Enforcement and Community Engagement
• Emergency Fire & Medical Services
• Municipal Court Services
> Quality of Life
• Parks
• Libraries
• Arts & Culture
• Neighborhood Assistance
• Safe, Clean Water
• Energy Services
• Sanitation Services
• Transportation
> Economic Development
• Business recruitment/retention
• Utility service expansion
• Tourism -Spring Training, Convention Center
• Education opportunities
• Downtown innovation/improvement
The Tax Policy Center's
Briefing Book
A citizen’s guide to the fascinating (though often complex) elements of the US tax system.
What are the sources of revenue for local governments?
OK....now back to report from Mesa OMB
History• In 1945, City Council eliminated a general purpose revenue, the primary property tax
• They authorized to increase the income of the utility department to support general governmental services
• Today, the City continues to provide general governmental services without a primary property tax
Enterprise Fund
• Utility operations and improvements
• Public Safety Contribution
• Economic Development
• Convention Center/Amphitheater
• Spring Training Facilities
• Economic Investment Fund
Economic Investment Fund
• Funding for economic investment opportunities that benefit the City as a whole
• Serves as a financial tool for investment in growth and expansion of industries in the City
• Allows for leveraging development opportunities as they arise
• Increased jobs/investment in the City as well as expansion of utility services/customers
Economic Investment Projects
• Healthcare study
• Mesa Center for Higher Education
• Benedictine University
• Spring Training Multi-use Fields
• ASU @ Mesa City Center
• The Studios @ Mesa City Center
• Able Engineering
• AZ Labs
• Launchpoint/Accelerator
• Purchase of Mervyn’s building
• Redevelopment zones
• CO+HOOTS @ Benedictine University
Revenue Investment
• Revenues gained from the lease of facilities offset some of the operating expenses
• One-time revenues are leveraged
Ex: Zayolease –one-time payment for lease of fiber
• Land sale revenues are leveraged
• Pinal County land
• Riverview
• Recker & Thomas
• Mervyns
General Governmental Sources and Uses
12
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Fiscal Year 2019/2020
PRESENTATIONS AND REPORTS
| 5/20/2019 | Budget | Public Safety Personnel Retirement System Funding Policy Presentation [PDF] | City Council Meeting | Presentation |
| 5/20/2019 | Budget | Public Safety Personnel Retirement System Funding Policy Report [PDF] | City Council Meeting | Report |
| 5/20/2019 | Capital | FY 2020-2024 CIP Funding Summary [PDF] | City Council Meeting | Report |
| 5/20/2019 | Capital | FY 2020-2024 Final CIP [PDF] | City Council Meeting | Report |
| 5/20/2019 | Budget | FY 2019/20 Tentative Budget Pie Charts [PDF] | City Council Meeting | Report |
| 5/20/2019 | Budget | FY 2019/20 Tentative Budget [PDF] | City Council Meeting | Report |
| 5/09/2019 | Budget | Enterprise Fund Review including the Economic Investment Fund Presentation [PDF] | Council Study Session | Presentation |
| 5/09/2019 | Budget | FY 2019/20 Budget Wrap-Up [PDF] | Council Study Session | Presentation |
