These outlays typically are for certain equipment,
some purchases of land or buildings, and smaller construction or renovation
projects. A cost cutoff, which may range (in U.S. dollars) from $10,000 or so
for a small town to several hundred thousand or a half million dollars or
even more for a large city or local government, is typically used for deciding
which capital outlays and projects are large enough to place in the capital
budget. Thus, while the accountant for a city with 200,000 people would be
expected to classify an expenditure of $25,000 for a police patrol vehicle as
a capital expenditure, the city’s budget officer would probably include such
an expenditure on a police department capital outlay line in the operating
budget rather than put it in the capital budget