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REQUEST -Budget Request Development
What Happens
 | Requests for funding and related actions are prepared by agencies and
their main operating organizations or components. Agencies and their operating
components know that a budget request will have to be submitted to OMB and Congress, and
even before there is guidance from OMB or formal requests for action, operating components
prepare for the process.
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| Operating components have a different set of incentives for preparing
their budget request than does the agency as a whole or OMB itself. Government
programs and their implementation are based in operating components; these elements and
their managers cannot afford to be passive in the process.
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Why
| Budget requests must be developed if the agency and its programs are to
function. Congress must approve appropriations. It does so every year.
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| Without a budget request, the agency and its programs cease to
exist. Disapproval of the request, or its elimination, is a way for Congress to do
away with programs or agencies it does not want to continue. Full, educated, and
effective participation in the process are essential for success. Sometimes it is
necessary for survival.
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| The agency must develop its position on what to ask for as well as
process the requests from operating components. The agency's basis for a budget
request is to obtain resources for its operations. These operations cannot simply be
defined by a few people working directly for the agency head, unless the agency is small
or new. Agencies with more than a few hundred employees, a complex mission, or a
long history must enlist the operating components for budget development and budget
justification preparations.
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Agency Actions
| Operating Component Actions: The agency's main operating components or elements
are the only ones who know what it takes to get things done and what will or will not get
done - they are the operations of the agency.
 | The operating components and their people are the ones who suffer or
prosper based on the outcome of decisions made by others, and are the ones that the
political leadership must rely on to achieve its own objectives. If they are to
survive and prosper, they cannot afford not to influence the outcomes of the budget
process.
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| Operating components and their people have the information necessary to
prepare sound budget requests, assess the effects of budget decisions, and ultimately
implement operating plans. If their advice and input is ignored or never obtained,
programs are bound to fail, and objectives never achieved.
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| The agency as a whole is represented by its central budget and planning
staffs, and these staffs prepare overall system requirements, specify formats for budget
submissions, and establish overall guidance from the agency head that implements the
agency head's priorities.
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| Requests from operating components are prepared by people with extensive
knowledge of programs and an incentive to be winners in the process, so they have an
incentive to prepare extensive and detailed justifications. This presents an
information management challenge for the agency since many thousands of pieces of
information must be processed, assessed, summarized, and decisions made on them in a
relatively short time. Bad decisions can come back to haunt the agency head.
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Timing
| The agency should issue its directions to operating components during
the winter (for example, during late December 1998-January 1999 for FY 2001) if it is to
meet OMB and internal agency decision deadlines. At the same time, operating
components should be developing their positions for the needs of their programs.
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| To be winners, operating components have to have a position developed
before the agency issues its instructions (unless they have a fairly routine program to
implement). Any program which faces rapidly changing circumstances has to be able to
present its case with strong evidence to support it. There isn't sufficient time to
prepare this case if the operating component leadership waits for the agency's process
instructions to start to prepare its case.
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Documents
| Operating components prepare justifications to obtain resources.
The documentation required is generally dictated by the agency central budget
staffs. Operating components prepare:
| Documentation of the request itself, along with documentation and
explanations of why increases may be required. (Increases are usually the norm.
There is no benefit in not asking for one.)
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| Briefings to make the case.
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| Back up and explanatory materials to prepare for meetings and to explain
to various staffs and assistants what the actual request means and why it is sound and
reasonable.
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| The purpose of these justifications and work is to:
| Defend what was obtained in the past through budget decisions, operating
plan development, and managing program and accounting for resources, and
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| Maintain long term credibility so future requests are not rejected out
of hand.
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Links
This part of the budget development process is confidential and kept
within the agency. There are no web places to visit to look at the documents.
They may be obtained after the end of the fiscal year to which they apply, usually through
an FOIA request.
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