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. The Fiscal Review includes only open and standing appropriations from the General Fund, the School Endowment fund, and the State Lottery Fund. It does not include open and standing appropriations from other funds which are usually considered fee-for-service programs.

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); a listing of open and standing appropriations (Table E); and a table of federal funds (Table F).

You will need the Adobe Acrobat viewer to read many parts of this document. Download the reader here