Revenues (forms 15-23)

Governmental fund revenue reports on eight forms: taxes (16), special benefit assessments (17), licenses and permits (18), fines and use of money and property (19), intergovernmental state (20), intergovernmental federal and county (21), charges for current services (22), and miscellaneous revenue (23). Most lines have two input columns, General and Functional.

General versus functional

The State Controller's instructions define the split:

• General revenues cannot be associated with a specific expenditure function and can be used for any legitimate public purpose. Examples: property tax (other than voter-approved debt levies), sales tax, business license tax.
• Functional revenues can be associated with one or more expenditure functions. A revenue is functional if either:
  1. it comes from direct services, such as fees and charges (sewer connection fees, water service charges, transit fares, engineering fees), including interest earned by enterprise funds and charges to other funds for services; or
  2. it is tied to a service by an external requirement, such as grant conditions, bond agreements, or statute or charter (for example, gas tax, federal workforce funds, special assessments). Restrictions the council can undo by its own vote do not count.

Functional revenue matters because the expenditure forms subtract it from each function's spending to show net expenditures: how much of each service the general taxpayer actually funds.

How the CACOA decides

Two codes do the work:

1. The object code picks the line. 3000 lands on form 16 line R01 (secured and unsecured property taxes), 3212 on form 20 R03 (gasoline tax), 3330 on form 22 R24 (parks and recreation fees), and so on for every revenue code.
2. The function code picks the column. Function 0000 means general revenue; any other function means functional revenue, reported for that function.

So the posting routine is:

Code a function on revenue only when the revenue is functional under the State Controller's two tests. Leave it at 0000 otherwise.

Some lines exist in only one column. Gasoline tax, public safety sales tax, and federal grants are always functional; off-highway vehicle in-lieu fees and state mandated cost reimbursements are always general. The crosswalk uses the only column available on those lines.

In LGRS, functional revenue is entered on form 15, which asks for the revenue line and the expenditure function it supports. A CACOA ledger already holds both: the object code is the revenue line and the function code is the expenditure function. Form 15 comes straight from the ledger.

Parent codes and detail codes

The FTR asks for more detail than most small agencies keep. The CACOA gives each FTR line its own universal code, and the parent code in each block has a sensible default:

• Property taxes. 3000 reports as current secured and unsecured property tax. Detail codes 3001-3009 carry the supplemental roll, the property tax in lieu of vehicle license fees, voter-approved debt levies, prior-year collections, and the ABX1 26 pass-through and residual distributions.
• Charges for services. The universal codes 3311-3341 each map to one line of form 22. If an agency posts all fees to the parent 3300, the function code picks the line: a fee coded to police (2100) reports as special police department services, one coded to planning (4100) as zoning and subdivision fees, one coded to libraries (5300) as library fines and fees.
• Special benefit assessments. 3131-3135 map to fire, paramedic, police, lighting, and other assessments. The parent 3130 uses the function code the same way.
• State revenue. 3211-3219 map to homeowners' property tax relief, gasoline tax, road maintenance and rehabilitation funds, POST reimbursements, off-highway vehicle fees, mandated costs, Proposition 172 public safety sales tax, and 2011 public safety realignment. General state revenue without a function reports as other state intergovernmental; with a function, as other state grants.

Lines that are easy to get wrong

• Development impact fees (AB 1600) go on form 23, line R01, not licenses and permits. CACOA 3110 already reports there.
• Construction and development taxes (bedroom taxes, Quimby Act park fees, storm drain fees) go on form 16, line R23: CACOA 3082.
• Overhead allocations from a cost allocation plan are reimbursements, not revenue. The fund that provided the service records a reduction of expenditures.
• Transfers in are other financing sources (form 30), never revenue.
• Capital grants received by a governmental fund are revenue (3500-3521 report with the related federal, state, or county grant lines). Noncash contributed assets are not recorded in governmental funds at all.

The complete list of revenue lines and the codes that feed them is at FTR forms.