Budget Glossary

Budgets come with their own vocabulary, and the documents rarely stop to explain it. This is a running reference for the terms used throughout this series.

The calendar and the process

Fiscal year (FY)

The city's budget year, which runs October 1 through September 30 and is named for the year it ends. FY27 is October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. When a chart shows "FY2026," it's mostly a year that already happened plus a few months of estimates.

Recommended budget

The mayor's proposal, presented each July. This is the number printed in the budget book — and the book is never updated after the fact, so when this series compares budgets year over year, it's comparing each year's recommended number from its own book.

Adopted budget

What council actually votes on in September, after two public hearings. Council can accept the mayor's proposal as-is with 4 votes or write its own with 5 — and because the mayor holds line-item veto authority, amendments may effectively need 5 votes too.

Revised budget

The adopted budget plus everything that happens to it mid-year: amendments, transfers, and carryforwards. This is why a department's "FY26 budget" can look wildly different depending on which document you're reading — the revised figure can run far above the number council originally adopted.

Actual vs. projection

"Actual" is what was really spent, known only after the year closes. Until then the city publishes projections — its own in-year estimates. In this series' charts, the most recent year's "actual" is the city's projection, and it's labeled that way. The two can differ by a lot, so a projection should never be quietly treated as a final number.

Where the money lives

General fund

The city's main checkbook — property taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes, and fees, with no strings attached. Police, fire, parks, and most of what people think of as "the city" is paid from here. FY27's recommended general fund is $731.3 million.

Enterprise funds

Operations that run like businesses and are supposed to pay for themselves through the rates their customers pay: water, wastewater, solid waste, parking. Their money stays in their own funds and doesn't compete with the general fund.

Special revenue funds

Money that's legally restricted to a purpose. Building permit fees are the sharpest example — state law says they can only pay for enforcing the building code, which is why Construction Services keeps its own fund and can't be bailed out by (or bail out) general government.

Fund balance

The city's savings account — what's left in a fund that hasn't been spent or committed. City policy targets a general fund reserve of 20% of current-year expenditures; the FY27 proposal sets aside about 25%, roughly $190 million.

Non-Departmental

A budget bucket, not a department. It's where citywide items that don't belong to anyone in particular get booked: transfers between funds, debt service, contingency. Its totals are big, but nobody works there.

Reading the spending charts

Personnel

Salaries plus benefits — health care and retirement included, which is why personnel costs grow even in years when headcount doesn't.

FTE (full-time equivalent)

How positions are counted. One full-time job is 1.0; part-time and seasonal positions count as fractions. That's how a department ends up budgeted for 454.52 positions.

Operating

The day-to-day costs of running a department that aren't people: utilities, fuel, maintenance contracts, and — increasingly — software subscriptions.

Capital

Money for things the city builds or buys that are supposed to last: buildings, vehicles, playgrounds, fire engines.

Debt

Payments on money the city has already borrowed — principal and interest.

Other

Frequently transfers between funds, and worth clicking through to the source to unpack. When a chart in this series shows a big "Other" bar, that's usually accounting movement, not a department going on a spending spree.

Capital projects and borrowing

CIP (Capital Improvement Program)

The city's rolling five-year plan for capital projects. Only the first year is real money that council appropriates; years two through five are statements of intent, and they can be modified every budget. The CIP is a seperate vote.

Appropriation

Council's legal authorization to spend money on something. A project isn't funded because it appears in a plan; it's funded when the money is appropriated.

Carryforward

Appropriated money that wasn't spent by year-end and rolls into the next year. Carryforwards are why revised budgets balloon — a department can show enormous "FY26 spending" that's really FY24 and FY25 projects finally getting built.

LTD (life-to-date)

A project's running total across every year it's existed — how much has been budgeted for it and how much has actually been spent. The clearest way to tell a real project from a line on a plan.

Reimbursement resolution

A council resolution declaring the city's intent to pay itself back from a future bond issue. It lets work start with cash on hand before the borrowing happens — and it's a good early signal of what the city actually expects to bond for.

GMP (guaranteed maximum price)

A construction contract structure that caps what the city will pay a contractor. Fire Station 24's roughly $24 million GMP is the recent example in this series.

Bonds — ad valorem and non-ad valorem

Borrowed money. Ad valorem bonds are backed by property taxes and require voter approval; non-ad valorem bonds are backed by a pledge of other city revenues and don't. Tampa's recent borrowing has been non-ad valorem.

Taxes and revenue

Ad valorem (property tax) and millage

"Ad valorem" is Latin for "according to value" — the tax on real estate. The rate is expressed in mills: one mill is $1 of tax for every $1,000 of taxable property value. When appraised values climb, collections rise without any vote to change the rate — which is how the city can truthfully say it hasn't raised taxes while collecting more of them.

Homestead exemption

The state constitutional break that shields part of a primary residence's value from property taxes. Proposals to expand it — like Amendment 3 on this fall's ballot — cut directly into the ad valorem revenue above.

Hillsborough County's half-cent sales tax, shared among the county, its cities, and the school district — Tampa receives 21.9% of collections under the renewed interlocal formula, and the 15-year renewal cut the school district's share from 25% to 5%. Unlike general sales tax revenue, CIT money can only be spent on capital projects — police cars and fire trucks qualify, salaries don't.

Charges for services

Revenue from people using something the city runs: convention center rentals, recreation program fees, permit and plan-review charges.

Intergovernmental revenue

Money from other governments — state revenue sharing, grants, and reimbursements. This line spikes in hurricane years, when FEMA money flows in, which is why a one-year revenue jump isn't always good news.