The General Fund
The City Charter says that all revenue not pledged by law or Charter for special purposes goes into the General Fund. The Controller's adopted budget calls it the City's primary operating fund, financed by taxes, licenses, permits, fees, fines and other money available for discretionary use. In the FY2026-27 adopted budget, General Fund receipts are $8.60 billion, 57.8% of budgeted receipts (Exhibit B).
Special funds
Special funds hold money from specific taxes, fees, grants or other sources designated for particular functions. Examples the adopted budget lists include the Sewer Construction and Maintenance Fund, the Solid Waste Resources Revenue Fund, the Proposition A and Proposition C transit sales-tax funds, the Special Gas Tax fund and the House LA Fund. Special receipts in FY2026-27 are $5.12 billion, 34.4% of budgeted receipts.
The Charter makes it unlawful to move money from one fund to another, or to pay one fund's bills from another, except through the Reserve Fund and the Unappropriated Balance or where the Charter provides. Money does move between them through the budget itself: in FY2026-27, $808.8 million of General Fund revenue is appropriated to special funds, and $730.3 million of special-fund revenue repays the General Fund for costs such as pensions, benefits and overhead for staff the special funds pay for.
At the end of each year, surplus money in most funds goes to the Reserve Fund. The Charter exempts bond, trust and pension funds and the funds of the Harbor, Library, Recreation and Parks, Water and Power, and Airports, among others.
Money voters set aside
Some special funds were created by ballot measures. Measure ULA's tax goes into the House LA Fund, a special trust fund whose money may be used only for the program the measure set out, and whose unspent balance stays in the fund rather than reverting to the Reserve Fund. Proposition HHH, approved in 2016, authorized the City to issue up to $1.2 billion in general obligation bonds for supportive and affordable housing and related facilities; the Controller reports that the measure requires at least 80% of the money to go to supportive housing and facilities.
Departments with their own funds
Three proprietary departments, Airports, Harbor, and Water and Power, keep their revenue in their own special funds, and each department's board of commissioners controls and appropriates that money. Their budgets sit outside the General City Budget: in FY2026-27 the adopted budget lists $32.40 billion in appropriations for the three, against $14.87 billion for the General City Budget (Exhibit C). The Charter also counts the Library, Recreation and Parks, and the two pension systems among the departments having control of their own special funds; unlike the proprietary three, the Library and Recreation and Parks receive appropriations in the General City Budget (Exhibits A and C).
On LA Receipts, All City funds lists the General Fund and each special fund with its budget and spending, and the departments page lists the proprietary departments separately.