Fund Accounting for Dummies

         OR

        Everything You Wanted to Know about Vallejo's Accounting Practices

            Written by Paul Norberg

            with glitter sprinkles from ADQ Katy Miessner

             01/08/2008  

The City is currently projecting that in 2 ½ years-by June 30, 2010-our General Fund will have a deficit of $22.6 million. 

The city has over $1 billion in assets and collects and spends about $300 million annually; this year about $82.8 million in the General Fund, and the remaining $217.2 million in other special funds. You might ask, why can't the city simply move money from one "fund" to another to solve the huge problem we are now facing with the General Fund?  To answer this question, first you need to understand the complexities of "Fund Accounting" and the restrictions it places on governmental spending.

A government is like a non-profit corporation.  The City has no personal profit motive-that is, no shareholders-and instead measures "accountability" instead of profitability.

The main purpose of this "accountability"-the guiding principle of governmental "Fund Accounting"-is to keep revenues and expenses separate from each other to insure the money is legally spent as the taxpayers intended it to be.  In a typical corporation or private business the owners or managers can move money around to create new projects or cover losses from one department with profits from another.  Governments on the other hand must separate-or segregate-money to insure that funds collected for one purpose is spent only on that purpose.  This is exactly what we are now facing.

MAYORAL RACE CLOSES IN BY ONE MORE VOTE! 

January 7, 2008

New election results: Davis's two-vote lead reduced to one. Another recount descrepancy discovered!

A "recount of the recount" was done before the Holidays, and apparently, one more vote for Cloutier was found, changing the results yet again, with Davis now ahead by only one, with 5718 total votes and Cloutier with 5717 votes.

Four Registrar of Voter staff reviewed and counted ballots from the precincts in question--those whose manual recount totals did not match the machine count totals--while in the presence of Solano County Sheriff’s Corporal Jon Couvillon and Deputy Gina Pickett.

Seems they discovered the election board recount was not correct, and yet another vote for Cloutier was "found", with Davis apparently ahead now by only one vote.

January 1, 2008

Surprise!!