pn-staff@codeforamerica.org on this doc: http://www.codeforamerica.org/cities/data-standards-faq/ below the Current Data Standards header the content is repeated What is the Difference Between Budget and Spending?

Budget Data

Budget data is defined as data relating to the broad funding priorities set forth by a government; typically highly aggregated or grouped by goals at a particular agency, branch, parish, locality, ministry, or department, etc.. For instance, a government may pass a budget including elements like "Allocate $20 million in funding for clean energy grants", or "Allocate $5 billion for space exploration on Mars". These kinds of data are produced by a parliament/legislature, on an annual or semi-annual basis.

Spending Data

Spending data is defined as the execution details, or rather, data relating to the specific expenditure of funds from the government. Spending data comes in a plethora of forms, typically a contract, loan, refundable tax credit, pension fund payment, or payment from other retirement assistance programs and government medical insurance programs. Following the context of the previous examples of budget data, some examples of spending data include a $5,000 grant to a Wind Farm for providing renewable wind energy, or a contract for $750,000 to Boeing to build a Mars rover component parts. Spending data is often transactional in nature, specifying a recipient, amount, and funding agency/department/branch/etc. Sometimes, when spending data payments are made to invidiuals, or there are privacy concerns involved, the spending data will be aggregated by geographic location or fiscal year.

Fiscal Data

The fiscal data of some governments may blur the lines of these definitions, but the aim is to separate the political documents from the raw output of government activity. The ultimate end-goal is linking the two datasets, creating linked open data, and to allow the public to see if the funding priorities set by one part of the government are being carried out by another part, but this is often impractical in larger governments since definitions of programs and goals can be "fuzzy" and vary from year to year.

Looking Beyond the Budget 2 - Tax Expenditures (pdf)