Glossary
House Research Department - Minnesota Government in Brief
This is the web complement to the ninth edition of Minnesota Government in Brief (PDF), published by House Research in January 2011. The site contains information from the hard copy of the publication, as well as additional data and links to relevant information. [The complementary web pages are in the process of being updated.]
Terminology
A - B - C - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - R - S - T - U - W
| Term | Definition |
| Actual dollars | Nominal dollars for the year indicated, not adjusted for inflation. |
| Alcoholic beverages taxes | Taxes imposed on alcoholic beverages on a per unit of volume basis; tax rates vary by type of alcohol category. |
| Appropriation | Authorization by the legislature to spend money from the state treasury for purposes established in law. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Bond ratings | Rating for bonds to be issued that primarily reflects the ability of the issuer to repay the bonds. Better bond ratings result in lower interest rates for the bonds issued. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Bonded debt | Debt that is evidenced by a certificate or other documentation that promises repayment to the bondholders—those who bought the bonds, loaning the money to the debtors—and specifies the payment terms, including interest. |
| Cash receipts | Payments in cash received in exchange for a product or service. |
| Charter school | A public school formed and operated by teachers, parents, and other community members in order to promote innovative approaches to education. A charter school's program is designed to increase student learning opportunities, create different and innovative measures of learning outcomes, create new forms of school accountability, encourage different and innovative teaching methods, and give teachers new professional opportunities. |
| Child and dependent care credit | An income tax credit for expenses paid to someone who cares for a taxpayer's child under age 13, or for a spouse or dependent who is not capable of self-care, to enable the taxpayer to work or look for work. The maximum federal credit is $1,050 for one child and $2,100 for two or more children; the maximum Minnesota credit is $720 for one child and $1,440 for two or more children. |
| Child care assistance | Federal, state, and county funds that subsidize child care costs for eligible families. Programs include Basic Sliding Fee Program for Working Families, Minnesota Family Investment Program Child Care, and Transition Year Child Care. |
| Community supervision | Any form of correctional supervision provided to offenders by probation officers or correction agents in the community. Including probation, parole, work release, Community Incarceration Program (CIP) Phase II and Phase III, and supervised release. (Minnesota Department of Corrections) |
| Consolidated fund statement | A summary of revenues, expenditures, reserves, and year-end balances for all the state's operating funds. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Constant dollars | The value of money after adjusting for inflation. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Constitutional officer | State elected officials designated in the Minnesota Constitution. They include the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor, and secretary of state. |
| Early childhood education | Education programs designed for children before they enter elementary school. |
| Environmental and Natural Resources Expendable Trust Fund | Fund in the state treasury that receives the investment earnings and a portion of the net lottery proceeds deposited in the Environmental and Natural Resources Non-expendable Trust Fund to be expended for natural resources purposes. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Estate taxes | The taxes levied on the transfer of property from the deceased to his or her heirs. The Minnesota estate tax equals Minnesota's portion of the old federal credit for state-level estate taxes. The federal credit was repealed, but the state credit is still based on it. |
| Executive branch | Consists of elected state constitutional officers and all state agencies, boards (not in the judicial branch), and commissions. |
| Family assistance | State and federal programs that provide assistance to families in the form of income, health care, child care, food purchasing, and housing. |
| Full-time employee | An employee who works the full, normal work day in a job of indefinite duration. |
| Gambling taxes | Taxes on lawful gambling, pull-tabs, tipboards, and combined receipts. |
| General fund | The largest fund in the state treasury, into which receipts from the major taxes are deposited. Most of the money in the general fund is not earmarked for specific purposes. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| General obligation bonds | Bonds that the state stands behind with its taxing powers. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Gross farm income | An aggregate of various forms of farm income: government payments, noncash income (includes value of home consumption and housing), farm-related income (includes income from custom work, machine hire, forest products, and other farm income), and value of inventory adjustment (estimated physical change in crops and livestock owned by farmers, valued at average prices prevailing during the year). |
| Gross state product | GSP; A measure of state economic output. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| High school graduation rule | Graduation requirement of Minnesota high school students, consisting of basic standards tests in reading, math, and written composition. |
| Higher education financial aid | Aid for postsecondary students consisting of loans, grants, and campus earnings, from federal, state, private, and university sources. |
| Home schools | A nonpublic school in which a parent provides instruction to a child who must be assessed annually using a nationally norm-referenced standardized achievement examination (unless the parent instructing the child is accredited by an accrediting agency). |
| Homestead | Property tax classification applying to owner-occupied homes and farms. Homestead property generally receives preferential property tax treatment compared to other types of property. |
| Housing assistance | Federal and state programs providing housing assistance, include programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. |
| Income assistance | Federal and state programs providing income assistance, including General Assistance, Minnesota Family Investment Program, Minnesota Supplemental Aid, and Supplemental Security Income. |
| Intensive supervision | Community supervision that includes increased surveillance by probation officers and corrections agents. (Minnesota Department of Corrections) |
| Judicial branch | Branch of government that includes all state courts and employees: the Minnesota Supreme Court, court of appeals, district courts, and conciliation courts. Also includes several boards performing judicial functions. |
| K-12 education credit | A refundable education tax credit of up to $1,000 or each child in grades K-12, with parents allowed to allocate expenses among children as they choose. The credit is subject to an income-based phaseout. It begins to phase out when income exceeds $33,500. For families claiming the credit for one or two children, it is fully phased out when income reaches $37,500. The phaseout extends for an additional $2,000 of income for each additional child claimed. The credit equals 75 percent of qualifying expenses, including tuition, transportation, textbooks, instructional materials, tutoring, academic summer school and camps, and up to $200 of the cost of a computer or education-related software. |
| Legislative branch | Consists of House, Senate, and joint legislative groups. |
| Legislative district | A geographic area within the state represented by a single member of the state Senate or House of Representatives. The state constitution does not allow the boundary of a House district to cross the boundary of a Senate district; in effect, House districts must be nested within Senate districts. The number of legislative districts is prescribed in law. |
| Long-term care credit | An individual income tax credit equal to 25 percent of premiums paid for long-term care insurance policies for the taxpayer and spouse. The maximum credit is $100 for single filers, and $200 for married couples, if both spouses are covered. |
| Market value | The valuation of a property, or a group of properties, as determined by the county assessor. The market value of a property is the starting point for determining the property tax levied upon the property. |
| Marriage credit | Income tax credit for some taxpayers filing a joint tax return. Offsets the "marriage penalty" that would otherwise occur because Minnesota tax brackets for joint returns are less than twice as wide as those for single filers. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Median | A measure of central tendency, the median is the middle term in a group that is ranked in order from lowest to highest. The median is less affected by extremely high or low terms in the group, unlike the "average" or "mean" (another measure of central tendency). |
| Nonhomestead | Property which is not classified as homestead. The term is most often used to identify residential property which is not homesteaded, i.e., rental housing, although it can be used more generally to identify any property which is not a homestead, including business property. |
| Nonpublic school | Any school, church or religious organization, or home school where a Minnesota resident may legally fulfill the state's compulsory attendance requirements. Or a nonsectarian nonpublic school that is not church-related, is not controlled by a church, and does not promote a religious belief. |
| Open enrollment | An alternative enrollment program that allows eligible Minnesota students to attend school in a school district other than the one in which they reside. |
| Parole | A discretionary release from prison after a parole board or commission determines that an offender has served an appropriate amount of accountability time in prison. In Minnesota, the only parole cases are juveniles committed to the Commissioner of Corrections and released, offenders with crimes committed prior to sentencing guidelines, and offenders with life sentences. (Minnesota Department of Corrections) |
| Part-time employee | An employee who works less than the full, normal work day. |
| Per capita | Per person, e.g. "Minnesota per capita personal income" equals total personal income for Minnesota divided by the state population. |
| Postsecondary enrollment options | PSEO; State program that allows public and nonpublic high school juniors and seniors to enroll in postsecondary courses for secondary or postsecondary credit. These students are accepted on a space available basis and are funded at marginal cost in the higher education formula. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Probation | A court-ordered sanction placing certain conditions on a convicted offender, which could include some local jail or workhouse time, but allowing the offender to remain in the community under the supervision of a probation officer. (House Fiscal Analysis Department) |
| Public school | Elementary and secondary schools funded by the state and regulated by the state and federal laws. |
| Redistricting | Adjusting the boundaries of U.S. congressional districts and state legislative districts in response to population changes shown by the U.S. census. |
| Revenue bonds | A bond where the debt service is payable solely from the revenue generated from the operation of the project being financed or a category of facilities, or from other nontax sources. |
| Revenues | Government revenue is money received by a government from external sources net of refunds and other correcting transactions, other than from the issuance of debt, liquidation of investments, and as agency and probate trust transactions. Government revenue excludes noncash transactions such as receipt of services, commodities, or other receipts in kind. (House Fiscal Analysis Department: Dictionary of U.S. Gov't. Statistical Terms) |
| Seasonal-recreational-residential | Property tax classification applying to property used for seasonal occupancy, such as cabins or resorts. The classification also includes undeveloped property (property without buildings) used for recreational purposes. |
| Spending | Expenditures as reported in the consolidated fund balance statement prepared by the Department of Finance. |
| Supervised release | For offenders sentenced under the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, the time period that an offender is under community supervision after being released from prison. (Minnesota Department of Corrections) |
| Temporary employee | An employee who works in a job of limited duration. |
| Unemployed persons | All people who did not work during the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) survey week who made specific efforts to find a job within the past four weeks, and who were available for work during the mid-week (except for temporary illness). Also included are those who did not work, were available, and were waiting to be called back from a layoff or were waiting to start a new job within 30 days. |
| Unemployment rate | The number unemployed as a percentage of the labor force where the labor force includes all persons currently employed or unemployed. |
| Wastewater treatment | The treatment of pollutants by a facility to a receiving waterbody in order to meet water quality standards. |
Some definitions used with permission from the Minnesota House of Representatives Fiscal Analysis Department's Glossary of Fiscal Terms & Acronyms.
Acronyms
| AFDC | Aid to Families with Dependent Children |
| AYP | Adequate Yearly Process |
| BSF | Basic Sliding Fee |
| BWSR | Board of Water and Soil Resources |
| CCA | Community Corrections Act |
| CIP | Challenge Incarceration Program |
| CPO | County Probation Act |
| CREP | Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program |
| DHS | Minnesota Department of Human Services |
| DNR | Minnesota Department of Natural Resources |
| DOC | Minnesota Department of Corrections |
| EBT | Electronic Benefits Transfer |
| ECFE | Early Childhood Family Education |
| FMR | Fair Market Rent |
| FS | Food Stamps (also Food Support) |
| FTE | Full-time Equivalent |
| FY | Fiscal Year |
| GA | General Assistance |
| GAMC | General Assistance Medical Care |
| GRH | Group Residential Housing |
| HUD | U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development |
| ICWC | Intensive Community Work Crew |
| ICS | Intensive Community Supervision |
| IEP | Individual Education Plan |
| ISR | Intensive Supervised Release |
| LCMR | Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources |
| MA | Medical Assistance |
| MAC | Metropolitan Airports Commission |
| MDE | Minnesota Department of Education |
| MFIP | Minnesota Family Investment Program |
| MHFA | Minnesota Housing Finance Agency |
| MNCare | MinnesotaCare |
| MnSCU | Minnesota State Colleges and Universities |
| MOHE | Minnesota Office of Higher Education |
| MSA | Minnesota Supplemental Aid |
| MSU | Minimum Security Unit |
| NCLB | No Child Left Behind |
| PCA | Pollution Control Agency |
| PFA | Public Facilities Authority |
| PSEO | Post-secondary Enrollment Option |
| RIM | Reinvest in Minnesota |
| SCHIP | State Children's Health Insurance Program |
| SSI | Supplemental Security Income |
| TANF | Temporary Assistance for Needy Families |
| USDA | U.S. Department of Agriculture |