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Budget: The Budget is the Agency’s projection of the money it will acquire and how the agency plans to spend the money.
General Ledger: Accounts in the General Ledger are created based on the Budget. Throughout the year Accountants fill out the General Ledger by allocating each Revenue and Expense to the appropriate department as stated on the Budget.
The Financial Statements are created by simply recording the totals from the General Ledger.
The City of San Diego’s 2021 Budget created a new department called ‘Homeless Strategies’ with $64,235,899 in Expenses and $55,444,848 in Revenue.
Almost $40 million of the revenue funds are ‘one-time’ revenue from the COVID-19 Rent Relief Fund and the CARES Act, which had a December 31st spending deadline.
The City of San Diego created another new department called ‘Office of Race and Equity’ with an allocation of $6,824,752 in Expenses and $3 million Revenue from the COVID-19 Rent Relief Fund.
A Public Records’ Request for the City’s General Ledger to review the Homeless Strategies Department’s Revenue and Expenses from July 1 through December 31, 2020, was returned with the following reply:
“..Homeless Strategies and Office of Race and Equity are departments and not stand alone funds so an individual General Ledger Report is not available..”
‘By Department’ is exactly how the General Ledger should be created. Specific Accounting Codes are allocated for each department in order to track the money received and spent by that Department.
‘Ghost Accounts’ are secret accounting codes found on the General Ledger that are not in the Budget. Ghost Accounts track transactions that the Agency is not disclosing to the Public, which is illegal.
But when there are Departments on the Budget that are not on the General Ledger it means that the Agency is lying to the Public about providing the Service, which is also illegal.
Misusing/Stealing local Taxpayer money is a State Crime, but misuse of Federal money is a Federal Crime that could result in Federal Prison time for the Staff and City Councilmen that Approved the fraudulent Budget. It could also result in the City’s loss of future Federal Funding.
