More Explanation!

[kaylavix]

Right now, we offer nothing describing what you're actually looking at (not even a dollar sign). Questions a public person could have: 1. What do these numbers mean? Are they revenues or expenditures?, 2. Are these even dollar amounts? 3. Is this what's been budgeted for, or what's been spent? 4. What do some of these big funds do (general explanation)?

See Open Oakland's little paragraphs sprinkled throughout the pages: "The General Fund — roughly 40% of Oakland's total budget -- is decided by a budget process that includes private and public meetings, surveys, and negotiations. The other 60% of the budget comes from taxes, ballot measures, grants, fees, and other sources."

Open OKC has navigation help: "Click on a fund to see the departments that receive its funding. Click on that department to see its spending or revenue. To step out of the department, click ‘Budget’ until you reach the desired department."

[sethetter]

@kaylavix: there's been some progress on the budget tree! Let's see which of these are addressed now:

1. Revenues vs expenditures -- the graphs are now separated! See revenues and expenditures.
2. They are dollar amounts (dollar signs in place now, haha).
3. Should be addressed by number 1.
4. Great point!!

We should put together a list of things we want to clarify on the budget page, such as what different funds are for, and some other caveats to the budget data that have come up. One of those being interfund transfers.

From Elizabeth Goltry regarding different funds:

As to what is included in other funds…that’s a fun question! Since we are a general purpose local government, we have quite an assortment of business lines. You can learn more about those funds starting on p. 88 of the budget, which is the Financial Plan:
http://www.wichita.gov/Government/Departments/Finance/Operating%20Budget/Financial%20Plan%20V1.pdf

.. and regarding interfund transfers:

The other thing that you might want to consider is the Interfund transfers, but that is tricky. It might require a check box to include Interfund transfers. They are expenditures out of one fund and then revenues into another fund. These transactions make things look larger than they seem.
I think it’s ok to retain Interfund transfers if you are looking at one fund. It starts to get murky when all funds are combined, because the Interfund transfers make things look much bigger than they are. It’s like looking at the finances of multiple in one household – if you are just looking at Brother Bear’s allowance, than its ok to see that as income. But if you look at Brother Bear and Mama/Papa Bear together, you would be counting Mama/Papa’s income, Mama/Papa’s transfer out, and then Brother’s income. If you were aggregating their family’s budgetary statements (an all funds summary) the only income would be for Mama/Papa, and the other entries would be excluded.

[kaylavix]

@sethetter That is glorious. I'm so excited for people to use this.

As far as clarifications/explanations, could we include a one-sentence explanation for the big funds when you hover over them? So, like, the General Fund might read:

"General Fund
$123,456
29%
Money for the general fund comes from income taxes, property taxes, blah blah"

(it may not be that simple, so this hovering one-sentence idea may not be the best, but something basic like that would be awesome).

Let's do some thinking about interfund transfers. That's an interesting problem.

[sethetter]

It's within the realm of possibility! We'd just need to evaluate what the technical difficult would be, and then making it easy to plug in the descriptions.

[chris-smith2714]

Hello-
I just recently joined and I happened to notice this area looking for help. Although I am not in Wichita; I have worked in the public sector for the last 7 years. I am familiar with the concepts of governmental finance and budgeting. I also have experience in project management. After reading the above, it might be an idea to create a user story defining the things we believe the users will want to see.
I will take a look at the past iterations and inputs before I jump in, if anyone could enlighten me on what the end goal is, I might be able to assist more. Sign me up to help. I am not a coder, but I am familiar with public finance and projects.
Thanks,
Chris