For individual department budgets, encumbrances (commitments for the procurement of goods or services which have not yet been received by the state) are accrued as expenditures by departments at year-end and included in the expenditure totals. This treatment is in accordance with the budgetary/legal basis of accounting and consistent with individual department budgets.
For the purpose of determining the overall General Fund balance, Government Code Section 13307 requires that encumbrances should not be counted as a budgetary expenditure until the delivery of the goods and services. More.....