Municipal accounting is a headache unless you're used to it!

Basically a 'dotation' is a subsidy ('subvention') given by central government, except that instead of targeting specific projects, it is a general subsidy.

"1. Les dotations et subventions
Elles représentent environ un tiers du produit des collectivités locales. A la différence des subventions qui obéissent au principe de spécialité des crédits, les dotations ne font pas l’objet d’une affectation précise. Les dotations correspondent à la logique de la décentralisation où l’Etat délègue un certain nombre de compétences en contre partie de dotations allouées aux collectivités locales."

The following site details 'specific subsidies' and 'non-specific [or 'general'] subsidies'.
https://www.iisd.org/gsi/sites/default/files/primer.pdf

Another term might be '(central) government grants' - 'In 2019/20, local authorities in England received 23% of their funding from government grants, 50% from council tax, and 27% from retained business rates'
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/local-g...

"Local government receives various grants from central government, which broadly fall into two categories: those that councils pass straight on to other services without touching (‘SPECIFIC RING-FENCED GRANTS’) and those that councils can spend directly on the services they run (referred to here as ‘CORE FUNDING’)."

So in UK parlance at least, 'dotations' could be 'core funding'

Since there is every chance this question will be revisited since it contains two terms, I shall content myself with one answer.


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Note added at 1 day 23 hrs (2021-12-11 15:08:38 GMT)
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If a more directly explanatory translation than 'core funding' is required, you might try 'unringfenced central-government general grants'.

Ringfenced grants
Local authorities must spend this on a specific activity, for which they give the
government evidence through rigorous reporting.
• Unringfenced general grants
There is no expectation of how local authorities spend this funding, other than
they should spend it lawfully.
• Unringfenced targeted grants
Departments provide these grants for local authorities to fund specific activities.
However, as they are not ringfenced, local authorities can reallocate these grants to other areas of their work to meet local priorities (paragraphs 1.7 to 1.13).