Massachusetts General Laws ch. 29 sec. 12A – Obligations incurred against appropriation or subsidiary accounts for future items delivered or services rendered
Section 12A. Beginning June 1 of any year, obligations may be incurred against appropriations for items to be delivered or for services to be rendered on or after the beginning of the next fiscal year; provided, however, that said obligations are in accordance with law and the amounts of the obligations do not exceed one-twelfth of that appropriation for the current fiscal year.
Terms Used In Massachusetts General Laws ch. 29 sec. 12A
- Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
- Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
- Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
Where the allotment of an appropriation is a condition precedent to expenditure, the obligations shall not exceed the amount allotted for said appropriation; provided, however, that during June the comptroller may prepare warrants and the state treasurer may advance funds to the department of transitional assistance to make payments on and after July 1 as authorized by chapter 658 of the acts of 1967; and provided further that said payments are in accordance with law and the amounts of said payments do not exceed the amount of the appropriation, provided, however, that no funds shall be expended until such funds have been appropriated. The certified copies of the schedules provided for in section 27 shall be filed with the comptroller and the budget director as of June 1. If the allotment of an appropriation is required by law, such allotment shall be made as of June 1.
In order to make timely state supplementary payments, the comptroller may present in the comptroller’s certificate to the governor’s council, and the state treasurer, with the consent of the council, may transfer to the United States Treasury or the entity administering the program of state supplementary payments, before July 1, funds necessary to make July payments to commonwealth benefit recipients.