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OMB Issues Guidance to Agency
What Happens
 | OMB establishes ceilings for dollars and head counts for the agency in the spring
preceding the request to Congress. The guidance includes the President's policy
priorities and preferences, instructs agencies on what programs to develop, emphasize,
reduce or eliminate, and provides the overall policy direction for the budget year. |
| OMB also provides technical guidance on how to prepare strategic plans and budget
request submissions, and integrates the requirements of the laws and regulations
applicable to the budget process. This makes it the most significant element that an
agency considers in its budget process actions. This guidance is issued as Circular A-11, which is revised every year. |
Why
| The law places all control of Executive Branch agency budgets in the President's
hands. The President's assistant in carrying out the budget laws is OMB. |
| The numbers provided by OMB to the agencies are targets for the appropriations levels in
the upcoming budget request. These numbers are related to the overall Federal budget
for the year, as well as whatever agreements may have been made with Congress on the
overall Federal budget deficit or surplus. OMB makes sure that the cumulative
requests of all agencies meet the overall level of budget request that the President wants
to submit to Congress. |
| OMB makes sure that the President's policies are implemented through the budget
process. The best way to accomplish this is to set the amounts of money and people
that the agency may have. Programs favored by the President get ample funding while
those not favored are cut or kept short of funds. Allocation of resources is a
powerful "attention getter." |
Agency Actions
| Agency heads accept the ceilings and policy guidance or negotiate through the summer to
get a higher ceiling or change policy. These negotiations can get heated. They are a test
of the agency head's political "clout" as well public interest in an
issue: The more the public interest favoring the agency, the more likely it is that
the agency will prevail. No political leader wants to look inattentive to an issue.
The budget is a clear way to make a leader look like one. |
| Operating managers have little influence on the "top down" guidance for any
given year. They must keep in mind the effect that the actions at the beginning of
the process will have on the end of the process (the execution of the budget), which is
what affects them directly and for which they are directly responsible. (For more
information on budget execution, see EXECUTE.) |
Timing
OMB issues its guidance in late spring and early July.
Documents and Links
| OMB's guidance on numbers and policy is not available to the public. It is
generally contained in a memorandum to a specific agency head; there may also be guidance
that is more general, which may be addressed to all agencies. |
| OMB's technical and procedural guidance are documented in Circular A-11, on how to assemble and present the budget request and strategic plans.
(A-11 now incorporates what was formerly in Circular
A-34, on how to account for funds; A-34 no longer exists.) These are public documents:
 | The OMB documents are available at OMB's web site.
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| The documents are also available from the Government Printing Office
(GPO) in either paper copy or on a CD ROM, in PDF format (the CD ROM has the same
information as is available from the web site).
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| To reach a link for these documents, click.
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| You may also find these documents in larger libraries or educational web
sites.
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