City Departments
Police, fire, parks and recreation, administration, legislation and other general government are all governmental funds each a separate accounting entity with self-balancing set of accounts. Governmental funds are used to account for all or most of a City's general activities, the acquisition or construction of general fixed assets (capital projects funds), and the servicing of general long-term debt (debt service funds). The general fund is used to account for all activities of the City not accounted for in some other fund and is the City's primary operating fund.
These departments have relied heavily on state aid monies but with increasing cuts from state government efforts need to be made to not depend on this aid. Annual appropriated budgets are adopted for the general and debt service funds.
Water, sewer and liquor are considered enterprise funds which goods or services from such activities are provided to outside parties. Proprietary funds are used to account for activities similar to those found in the private sector, where the determination of net income is necessary or useful to sound financial administration.