Budget Views

In our commitment to financial transparency, Provincetown posts its financial information, such as department budgets to actual expenditures, cash fund balances, and the past yearly budget views.

There are times additional information may be sought out by residents, the financial community, or elected officials. Oftentimes that information is most easily understood through interactive charts and graphs. The town has engaged OpenGov.com to assist with providing that opportunity. Users can view historical financial data for FY11 through current and budgeted financial data for the current fiscal year. The users can use the data to drill down to finite detail or scale up to the big picture. Users can also download the data as an Excel spreadsheet.

Explore the Town of Provincetown Financial Transparency Data Portal.

"Through this Cape-wide working partnership, we can all bring transparency to the public's business and efficiency to our operations," said Provincetown Town Manager David B. Panagore. "Provincetown's growing on-line presence has provided a better window into our operations and now with OpenGov we can offer public access to our financial information."

Tips on How to Use the Portal

Here are some general tips on how to use the Financial Transparency Data Portal:

• The Portal allows you to explore historical and budgeted financial data in a simple graphical user interface. The main view (shown above) includes a chart or graph, a legend and various controls to view expenses by departments out of various funds.
• You will notice the title of the chart or graph you are viewing on top along with the account type selector. You can use the filter to see the data that is of most interest to you.
• To focus on specific data - like a fund, department, expense type, or any combination - look to the left and use the menu on the side panel. These selectors allow you to specify exactly what breakdown you want the graph or table to represent. When you select "Filtered By" the data filter pops up and allows you to turn on or turn off selected filters for that category - funds, departments, expense type.
• Keep in mind that some departments or expenses only receive funds from specific funds. If the department or expense is not funded from a particular fund, it will be grayed out.
• There are five different types of visual representations of the data - an area graph, an area graph by percentage, a line graph, a pie graph and a table. You can change your view by type at any point by simply selecting the different type of representation. The data will automatically convert. These functions are on the top right.
• You can also download the data into a .csv spreadsheet or .png image.

Here is some additional Fund information...

• Provincetown's main fund is its General Fund and is used to account for and report all financial resources for and reported in another fund.
  Funds are unrestricted and available for expenditure for any lawful purpose after appropriation by town meeting.
• Provincetown has numerous Special Revenue, or restricted, funds. These funds are for a specific purpose and have a dedicated revenue source.
• "Governmental Funds" consist of the General Fund and the Special Revenue funds together with the Capital Projects funds.
• "Proprietary Funds" consist of Enterprise Funds which are operated in a manner similar to a private business. Proprietary funds distinguish operating revenues and expenses from nonoperating items. Operating revenues and expenses generally result from providing services and producing and delivering goods in connection with the proprietary funds principal ongoing operations. All revenues and expenses not meeting this definition are reported as nonoperating revenues and expenses.
• "Fiduciary funds" are used to account for assets held in a trustee capacity for others that cannot be used
  to support the government's programs.