Federal Budget Control in the United States

Budget Execution and Control in the Federal Budget Process

Federal Budget Control in the congressional and executive budget processes (GAO source): The body of enacted laws providing appropriations for a fiscal year becomes the government’s financial plan for that fiscal year. The execution and control phase refers generally to the period during which the budget authority made available by appropriations remains available for obligation. An agency’s task during this phase is to spend the money Congress has given it to carry out the objectives of its program legislation in accordance with fiscal statutes and appropriations, while at the same time beginning phase 1 for the next budget.

The Antideficiency Act is one of these fiscal statutes. It is a funds control, financial management statute, and it achieves this funds control objective through a system of apportionments, allotments, suballotments, and allocation of funds. It requires that agency heads prescribe, by regulation, a system of administrative control of funds. The system is also called the funds control system, and the regulations are called funds control regulations.

OMB is responsible for apportioning appropriated amounts to the executive branch agencies, thereby making funds in appropriation accounts (administered by Treasury) available for obligation. The apportionment is intended to achieve an effective and orderly use of available budget authority and ensure that obligations and expenditures are made at a controlled rate to reduce the need for supplemental appropriations, and prevent deficiencies from arising before the end of a fiscal year.

Once OMB apportions funds, it is the agency’s responsibility to allocate the funds in accordance with its funds control system and regulations. The purpose of the funds control system and regulations is (1) to prevent overobligations and expenditures and (2) to fix accountability for obligations or expenditures. An obligation or expenditure that exceeds the amount of the appropriation, the apportionment, or the allotment violates the Antideficiency Act. For a more detailed explanation of these controls, see GAO/OGC-92-13, Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, volume II, second edition (available at www.gao.gov/legal.htm), and OMB Circular No. A-11, part 4, Instructions on Budget Execution.

Guide to Stages of the Federal Budgeting Process

• Federal Budget Execution
• Federal Budget Development
• Executive Budget Formulation
• Next Budget Request
• Initial Budget Request Materials
• OMB Passback Decisions
• President Budget Request
• Mid-Session Review Document
• Congressional Budget Process
• Budget Committees
• Estimates Reports
• Budget Resolution
• Fiscal Legislation
• Federal Budget Control
• Impoundment

Resources

See Also

• Federal Appropriations
• Entries about the United States Budget Process in the Encyclopedia (including Federal Budget Control)
• Public Debt

Further Reading

• Legislatures and the budget process: the myth of fiscal control

  (J Wehner, 2010)

• Reconcilable Differences?: Congress, the Budget Process, and the Deficit (JB Gilmour, 1990)
• Fiscal institutions and fiscal performance

  (JM Poterba, J von Hagen, 2008)