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Statewide Expenditures and Revenues Reported by Florida's Counties, Municipalities, and Independent Special Districts
Local governments are accountable for the manner in which they spend public funds, and the submission of financial reports required by state law is one method of demonstrating accountability. Two types of local government financial reporting are the Annual Financial Audit and the Annual Financial Report (AFR).
Section 218.39, F.S., requires all counties and those municipalities and independent special districts that meet a certain threshold for revenues or expenditures to have an Annual Financial Audit of their accounts and records conducted by an independent certified public accountant within nine months after the end of its fiscal year. The statute requires these annual county and municipal audit reports to be filed with the State of Florida's Auditor General.
Section 218.32, F.S., requires counties, municipalities, and independent special districts to complete and submit to the Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS) a copy of its Annual Financial Report (i.e., AFR) for the previous fiscal year no later than nine months after the end of the fiscal year. The AFR is not an audit but rather a unique financial document completed using a format (i.e., Uniform Accounting System Manual) prescribed by the DFS.
The Department of Financial Services (DFS) has created a web-based, Florida Open Financial Statement System, which allows interested parties to view and/or download local government financial data. Users can view or download AFRs submitted by local governments, create system-generated reports, and create customized reports for the years 2012 through 2023 from the Public Reports Menu.
Using AFR data obtained from these reporting systems, EDR staff prepared the following summary tabulations, which list total and per capita expenditure and revenue figures by major category for individual county and municipal governments for the most recent local fiscal years. The major expenditure categories include general government services (not court-related), public safety, physical environment, transportation, economic environment, human services, culture/recreation, other uses and non-operating, and court-related. The major revenue categories include taxes; permits, fees, and special assessments; intergovernmental revenue; charges for services; judgments, fines, and forfeits; miscellaneous revenues; and other sources. EDR staff also prepared statewide summaries, which list expenditures and revenue totals by account code for counties, municipalities, and independent special districts. Additional files summarizing fiscal data for future and prior fiscal years will be added as the tabulations are completed.
In preparation for the implementation of GASB Statement No. 87, the Department added the Custodial Fund column to the AFR. FY 2020-21 is the first year of Custodial Fund reporting, which is used to account for assets held by a government in a purely custodial capacity. Since prior fiscal years do not include Custodial Fund reporting, the account totals may not be directly comparable. EDR made no adjustment, and the figures for FY 2020-21 and thereafter that are included in the applicable data sets reflect those reported by DFS.
Readers looking for the complete expenditure and revenue detail for individual jurisdictions are encouraged to visit the separate Expenditures and Revenues Reported by Florida's County Governments and Municipal Governments webpages.
Additional Data from the Department of Financial Services
From time to time, EDR will receive inquiries from researchers asking about the availability of additional historical data. Although EDR staff has not yet compiled these data into the specific formats posted on this website, the raw data files are available. Please note that the individual data files for local fiscal years ended 1993 through 2008 are listed below. These files were obtained from the Department of Financial Services (DFS) and list the reported revenues or expenditures for counties, municipalities, independent special districts, and other governmental entities. EDR has no data prior to 1993.
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Last Revised: July 18, 2024
