Where the Money Flows
Every dollar of the City of Vacaville's FY2025-26 General Fund, traced from revenue source through the fund to the department that spends it. Modeled on the income-statement flow diagrams popularized for public companies — applied here to a public budget.
View every published line item as a table
| Side | Group | Line item | Amount | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| revenue | Taxes | Sales tax (Bradley-Burns) | $27506262 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Measure M sales tax | $21348950 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Property tax | $21100471 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Property tax in lieu of VLF | $15057016 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Excise taxes (Measures I & G) | $9409983 | Measure I (1989/2012) utility-bill, hotel, and per-employee excise (~$3.0M) plus Measure G (2005) utility franchise/excise (~$6.4M). |
| revenue | Taxes | Paramedic tax | $7312900 | |
| revenue | Taxes | RDA pass-through / TI excess | $6152400 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Franchise tax | $5705593 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Transient lodging tax | $2087102 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Public safety sales tax (Prop 172) | $540000 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Real property transfer tax | $527100 | |
| revenue | Taxes | Business license tax | $435000 | |
| revenue | Fees & charges | Emergency medical fees | $6000000 | |
| revenue | Fees & charges | Recreation & facilities fees | $4954456 | |
| revenue | Fees & charges | Police & fire fees | $1145635 | |
| revenue | Fees & charges | Other departmental fees | $457618 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | GEMT program (intergovernmental) | $1442000 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | Partnership Health transport | $1000000 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | In-lieu development impact fees | $509394 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | Cell tower leases | $486875 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | Interest, penalties & rents | $382000 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | Homeowners subvention | $180000 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | State reimbursements | $145000 | |
| revenue | Other revenue | Miscellaneous | $153000 | |
| revenue | Transfers & reserves | Transfers in (CFDs & traffic fines) | $10925235 | |
| revenue | Transfers & reserves | Overhead recovered from other funds | $6574920 | Internal cost allocation — General Fund overhead charged to utility and special revenue funds, shown in the budget as a negative expenditure (-$6,574,920); presented here as an inflow so the diagram balances gross. |
| revenue | Transfers & reserves | Drawn from reserves & one-time sources (derived) | $13428517 | Balancing figure: gross uses ($164,967,427) minus budgeted revenues and other inflows ($151,538,910). The budget's own Sources and Uses schedule, which nets transfers differently, states a planned "use of fund balance" of $8,892,389 — either way, FY2025-26 spending exceeds revenue and the gap is covered from fund balance. |
| spending | Public safety | Police Department | $58947980 | |
| spending | Public safety | Fire Department | $45099727 | |
| spending | Public works | Public Works (general) | $12267906 | |
| spending | Public works | Park maintenance | $4125868 | |
| spending | Community services | Parks & Recreation | $11330706 | |
| spending | Community services | Housing & Community Services | $159661 | |
| spending | Administration | Finance | $5817527 | |
| spending | Administration | Non-departmental | $4760870 | |
| spending | Administration | Human Resources | $3858986 | |
| spending | Administration | Information Technology | $3497528 | |
| spending | Administration | City Manager's Office / Clerk | $3358373 | |
| spending | Administration | City Attorney | $2793011 | |
| spending | Administration | Economic Development | $1078113 | |
| spending | Administration | City Council / Treasurer | $128755 | |
| spending | Transfers out | Transfers out (capital, equipment, districts) | $7742416 | Support to community development, park maintenance districts, vehicle/equipment replacement, technology projects, and capital improvement projects. |
How to read this
Money flows left to right. The left side is every revenue line the city publishes for the General Fund — taxes, fees, and transfers — grouped by type. The center is the General Fund itself. The right side is where it goes: departments, grouped by function, plus transfers out to capital and equipment funds. Ribbon width is proportional to dollars. Hover any ribbon or bar for exact figures; small lines are bundled in the diagram but itemized in the table above.
Two things the shape makes obvious. First, sales taxes (Bradley-Burns plus Measure M) are the city's largest revenue engine at $48.9M — Vacaville is the most sales-tax-dependent of the big Solano cities. Second, Police and Fire together consume $104.0M, about two-thirds of all departmental spending, and more than every tax the city collects except sales and property taxes combined.
Methodology & sources
All figures are the FY 2025/26 budget column of the City of Vacaville FY2025-26 Final Budget Document (Finance Department): the Schedule of General Fund Revenue (p. 9), the Summary of Expenditures by Fund (p. 13), and the Sources and Uses schedules (pp. 14-15). Revenue detail reconciles exactly to the printed $134,038,755 subtotal; department detail reconciles to the printed $157,225,012 subtotal. The data behind this chart lives in the site repository as a structured file with per-line provenance.
- The diagram balances on a gross basis: departmental spending plus transfers out, matched by revenues, transfers in, overhead the General Fund recovers from utility funds ($6.6M), and a balancing draw on reserves (~$13.4M).
- The city's own Sources and Uses schedule, which nets transfers differently, states the planned use of fund balance as $8.9M. Either way the structural fact is the same: FY2025-26 spending exceeds revenue.
- "Excise taxes" combines Measure I (utility-bill, hotel, and per-employee excise, ~$3.0M) and Measure G (utility franchise excise, ~$6.4M).
Other lenses on the same money
The General Fund is about half the city's total budget. The all-funds lens shows the full $301M and which fund pays for what; the ACFR lens shows audited FY2024 actuals and the net cost of each city function.
What's next
This is the first jurisdiction in a series. The data schema is jurisdiction-agnostic, so the same diagrams can render Solano County's budget next, then each of the seven Solano cities, from their adopted budget documents. The longer arc is to generalize the pattern for any U.S. public jurisdiction.