|National Taxpayers Union| A government budget is a summary of
financial documents that outline the key financial facts about
what a particular unit of government expects to spend and raise
over a period of time, usually a year. Informative budgets
include information that breaks down revenues and expenses into
useful categories that enable citizens to evaluate where their
money is being spent. Budgets can be more or less useful,
depending on how they are prepared and presented to the public.
For example, a budget for a school district that includes a
category for administrative salaries and a category for teaching
salaries is considerably more informative than a budget that
only has one category for all payroll expenses. State budget
process The budget process varies from state to state. However
most state constitutions require that state budgets be balanced;
in other words, the state cannot have a remaining deficit in the
new state budget. Most budgets cover a fiscal year which begins
July 1 and ends June 3