§ 21.12-1202. Definition and Form of Budgets and Programs and Classification of Accounts.

 A. The Board shall adopt in the Administrative Code a uniform classification of accounts and codes to be used and followed in all financial plans, budgets and financial reports which are required by this Charter.

 B. The Board shall prescribe the form in which the operating budget and capital program shall be prepared, and such form shall be followed in the preliminary and final budgets adopted by the Board.

 C. The operating budget is the operating plan of revenue and expenditures for a fiscal year. The form of the operating budget shall include, in addition to the major classification of appropriations by which expenditures are to be allocated and controlled, a detailed analysis of the various items of revenues and expenditures. All appropriations shall at minimum be specified as to each office, department, major operating unit, board or citizens’ group.

 D. The capital program is a projection of construction or acquisition of capital assets and the means of their financing. The form of the capital program shall include an identification of each expenditure by project, the year in which acquisition or construction is to be scheduled, a suggestion as to the means by which each capital project is to be financed, the effect of any proposed capital expenditures on future operating expenses and the effect of any proposed new indebtedness on the amortization schedule of existing debt and on the debt limit. Said capital program may provide for the capital projects to be financed from current revenues, available surplus or monies borrowed as authorized by this Charter or state law. The first year of a capital program shall be the Capital Budget, when adopted for a fiscal year.

   Commentary: : The Charter requirements with regard to the form of the operating budget as set forth in §  21.12-1202C do not include the line-by-line system which is currently employed. It was the GSC’s view that the Charter should require only a minimum classification of the budget by department and that the Board will determine from time to time whether it desires a line-by-line budget by type of expenditures as is currently utilized or a line-by-line budget by program within each department.