FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
Cash Management: The way a city invests and otherwise handles the money in its treasury. Good cash management means investing available dollars so as to achieve good returns with an acceptable amount of risk, and maintaining effective oversight in the process.
Cost Accounting: The effort to calculate the expense associated with delivering an individual unit of service; for example, repairing one pothole.
Fiscal Note: An addendum, often attached to a spending bill, that shows how much money the program or project will likely cost in future years.
GAAP: Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. This body of uniform accounting standards is promulgated by the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, and allows for comparability between jurisdictions.
One-Time Revenue: Money that comes in from a non-repeating source: the sale of an asset, for example. Ideally, one-time revenues should be used to pay for one-time expenses, not continuing budgetary needs.
Rainy Day Fund (sometimes called a contingency fund): Reserves set aside to be used in the event of recession or other unpredictable fiscal surprises.
Structural Balance: A government should bring in more revenue than it spends each year. If it defies this general rule year after year, it is not in structural balance.
HUMAN RESOURCES
Certified List: Many city governments provide their agencies with limited lists of applicants for job openings; they often include three, five or 10 names (cities with such lists are then referred to as having a “rule of three,” “rule of five,” etc.)
Pay for Performance: A means of tying employee pay levels to the quality of work delivered.
Work Force Planning: An effort to predict future personnel needs and to make sure those needs will be met.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Data Warehouse: A computer system that acts as a storage closet for information, making data easily available to managers.
Wide-Area Network: A computer network that permits many departments to communicate with minimal effort.
CAPITAL MANAGEMENT
Major Maintenance: Large-scale projects to repair and rehabilitate buildings that have significant problems. Major maintenance funding can come out of operating budgets but often comes out of capital budgets instead.
Routine Maintenance: Upkeep on buildings that should be done on a regular basis to prevent their usefulness from eroding. Routine maintenance nearly always comes out of operating budgets.
MANAGING FOR RESULTS
Benchmarks: Goals that cities set for themselves, against which actual results are later compared.
Input Measures: The simple measurement of resources used to deliver a product or service.
Output Measures: Measures that focus on quantity of a project or program. The number of measles inoculations given each year is an output measure.
Outcome Measures: Measures that focus on the results, rather than the quantity of work, delivered by a project or program. The decline in measles cases resulting from inoculations is an outcome measure.
Performance Budgeting: An attempt to tie funding of a program to its demonstrated effectiveness and efficiency. The precise use of this term varies from city to city.
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