Budget envelope and restricted balances

Method, inputs and limits

Reconciles supplied resources, existing commitments and proposed spending within separately declared accounts for one period. Method version 0.2.0. Authorize restricted spending, certify budget legality, infer future revenue or pool restricted balances.

Visible mathematics / decision rules

resources = opening balance + declared revenue

remaining = resources − existing commitments − proposed spending

funding gap = max(0, −remaining), separately for each account

allocation cost = known unit cost × funded units

allocation gap = max(0, required cost − funded cost); minimum units and earmarks are separate feasibility constraints

minimum service top-up = max(0, minimum units − funded units) × declared unit cost

What this result cannot establish

• Bounded implementation from supplied acceptance checks and restored CORE definitions; scope choices are explicit below.
• Documented allocation mechanics are optional. Without them, feasibility covers the declared account envelope only; service minima and unit costs remain unknown.
• Restricted balances never offset an unrestricted account or another account deficit. No transfers are modeled.
• Commitments and proposed spending must have exclusive scopes. Input currency, price basis and period must already match.
• Purpose matching is a declared arithmetic constraint, not legal authorization. Unrecorded restrictions and obligations need human review.
• Safe integer minor units only. A non-AI budget spreadsheet produces the same balances.

What would falsify the assumptions?

• The result fails if an obligation, restriction or revenue condition is omitted.
• Audited balances and authorized appropriations can contradict supplied resources or purpose labels.
• Every account must reconcile resources, commitments, proposal and balance; no physical service is inferred.
• Reproduce account balances manually.
• This is declared fiscal arithmetic, not legal advice or a forecast.
• MAR adds no benefit if ordinary accounting is equally accurate, and adds risk if it hides restricted gaps.
• Assumptions fail if the supplied definitions, units, period, scope or source records are wrong or incomplete.
• An independent source audit or replication may contradict an input or the recorded dependency.
• This method creates no resources. Physical conservation is checked in the inventory and transfer ledgers; descriptive graphs and checklists are not resource-flow models.
• The same equations and review checklist can be reproduced with a spreadsheet or structured human-only process.
• This is deterministic arithmetic, a descriptive comparison or a structured governance check, not a fitted causal effect or forecast. Fictional inputs remain an exercise.
• Equal or worse measured errors, net review effort, disclosure burden or fallback under MAR would show no added benefit or added risk; no improvement is assumed.

{
  "observations": {
    "unit": "minor currency units",
    "origin": "synthetic",
    "sources": [
      {
        "id": "SYN-001",
        "kind": "synthetic",
        "label": "Fictional separate budget accounts",
        "url": null
      }
    ],
    "currency": "USD",
    "priceBasis": "nominal",
    "baseYear": 2026,
    "period": "fictional fiscal year 2026",
    "fundingCeilingMinor": 19000000,
    "allocations": [],
    "accounts": [
      {
        "id": "general",
        "label": "General fund",
        "restricted": false,
        "allowedPurpose": "general",
        "proposedPurpose": "civilian services",
        "openingMinor": 10000000,
        "revenuesMinor": 5000000,
        "committedMinor": 6000000,
        "proposedMinor": 10000000
      },
      {
        "id": "water",
        "label": "Restricted water reserve",
        "restricted": true,
        "allowedPurpose": "water",
        "proposedPurpose": "water",
        "openingMinor": 4000000,
        "revenuesMinor": 0,
        "committedMinor": 1000000,
        "proposedMinor": 1000000
      }
    ]
  },
  "parameters": {}
}

{
  "unrestrictedRemainingMinor": -1000000,
  "restrictedRemainingMinor": 2000000,
  "fundingGapMinor": 1000000
}

Authoritative background references

• U.S. GAO: Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide — Published 12 March 2020. Estimation and sensitivity guidance; no endorsement of this implementation. Reviewed 2026-11-09. Reference, not endorsement or validation.
• CBO: Processes and methodology — Published government estimates differ from user-input arithmetic. Reviewed 2026-11-09. Reference, not endorsement or validation.

These sources inform definitions or review practices. They do not validate this implementation or endorse MAR.