|
Introduction
Local Property Tax Aids and Credits
Senate Counsel & Research home page
|
Introduction
The Fiscal Review is a report of actions taken by the 1998 regular session and one special session of the Minnesota Legislature. These reports have been issued annually since 1975. The 1998 appropriations amend the biennial budget in the 1997 session. Some changes involve updated estimates of open and standing appropriations, while other changes are the result of the passage of new laws.
The Fiscal Review is not an accounting of all legislative actions. It covers those with significant fiscal impact and other significant actions of the Legislature. |
The tables in the Fiscal Review are all-inclusive and can be reconciled with fund statements prepared by the Department of Finance.
The report is on appropriations, not actual spending. Spending is affected by many factors, including accounting practices, program participation, etc. Appropriations are basically authorizations for expenditures.
Some appropriations are open-ended and determined by formula or participation rates specified by statute. These are called open and standing appropriations. The Review uses the estimates of open and standing appropriations made through the Department of Finance at the time the budget was enacted.
Direct appropriations essentially are the limits on spending put into the session laws.
The report handles open and standing appropriations as direct appropriations when the appropriation amount is specified in the session law. (For example, education aids are based on open and standing authority to comply with the funding formulas, but the Legislature actually uses the estimate of the cost in the session law.)
This report is organized by functional groupings of appropriations which are most comprehensive on Table C of the statistical section.
There are also tables of appropriations by fund (Table A); a table of appropriations by fund and law (chapter) (Table D); a General Fund balance statement (Table B); and a listing of open and standing appropriations (Table E).