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Agency Request to OMB
What Happens
 | Agency sends to OMB its budget request in early September, with a
transmittal letter. Budget request consists of a series of documents and tables
that state the agency's budget needs and explains how resources will be used.
Documents provide information on the fiscal year preceding the request, and one or two
years before the year of the request.
 | The request for FY 2001 is due September 13, 1999.
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| For FY 2001, three years of performance data will be required (FY 1999,
FY 2000, and FY 2001), and an additional three years of data are encouraged by OMB.
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| When high profile and politically significant issues arise with resource
implications for agency, different process may be used. Informal mechanisms may be
used to work with OMB to formalize budget request developed after formal request was sent
to OMB in early September.
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| Integral element of the submission process are hearings
held by OMB on the agency's request. High-level officials from agency (including
operating component representatives) attend the hearings.
| These hearings are a ritual without which the budget process would not
be complete. The hearings provide an opportunity for OMB budget examiners to ask
questions directly of high level political appointees.
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| The hearings are essentially meetings, with the nature of the discussion
and the tone of the meeting vary depending on the relationships between OMB and the
agency, and the personalities of the people involved.
 | The OMB-agency relationship is very much dictated by the
administration's perspective on the agency's mission, programs, and personnel. An
agency whose programs are in favor with the current administration gets treated better
than one that is not. And the treatment sometimes get down to basics such as
manners.
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Why
| OMB reviews and makes recommendations on agency budget requests as required by statute,
making OMB very powerful Presidential agent. OMB is source of overall budgetary
discipline within Executive Branch. |
| The agency's request to OMB is its position on what will be accomplished with requested
resources. OMB bases its examination of the request and its final recommendations to
the President on the documentation of the request and associated hearings and supplemental
submissions. |
| OMB's analysis process involves exhaustive review of the agency's documents and
correlation of these presentations with other information available to examiners.
The primary purpose of the budget examinations is to reduce amounts granted, presumably
based on a rational analysis. This analysis is expected to be accepted by all
participants. The agency expects that OMB's rational analysis process will yield a
budget increase. This sets up an adversarial relationship between the agencies and
OMB. |
Agency Actions
| Budget review and analysis has associated procedures and rituals in which the agency
participates. Review starts with a series of hearings conducted by senior OMB
persons in charge of specific agency or issues presented by agency. Agency personnel
journey to OMB headquarters in the New Executive Office Building, are processed through
tight security, and participate in a meeting with OMB examiners for a few hours.
Very seldom is the case that OMB examiners visit the agency for this purpose. |
| Proceedings may be followed by additional meetings, either at OMB's offices or at
agency's location. Additional materials must be submitted with short turn around
times. OMB's actions are complex - not a simple progression which starts at the
submission of documentation of request. (See GUIDANCE.)
OMB examiners and managers attempt to integrate into their analyses and
recommendations the full interests of the whole Federal establishment and those of the
current Administration. This is not easy - it should not be surprising that
sometimes it does not turn out well. |
| Operating components have large role in preparing actual documents submitted to
OMB. They have been involved in developing the budget request. Submission to
OMB provides opportunity to summarize reasons for resources for programs for which
managers of operating components are responsible. Operating managers have an
opportunity to make their case - or to lose it. |
| Request to OMB, as well as later request to Congress, is also an exercise in information
management. Information provided to support budget requests results from a long
process of aggregating and distilling information. (See communications
and the budget process.) |
| Agency submits documentation of request for the fiscal year two years removed from
current operating year. For example, in late summer 1998, agencies submitted
requests for Fiscal Year 2000, which starts October 1, 1999. Budget submission dates
are set in Circular A-11 and its transmittal
memorandum. For the FY 2001 budget (which starts on October 1, 2000), the submission
deadline is September 13, 1999. |
| OMB hearings with agency usually start mid-September, following the submission of the
request. OMB interactions with agency on request end by mid-October. OMB then
enters its own decision process, with reviews by OMB director and final decisions by
President. First OMB/Presidential decision are communicated to agency around
Thanksgiving. Final decisions become available around Christmas. |
| Under exceptional circumstances, such as emerging issues of international significance
(major amendment to the Clean Air Act, or global climate change treaty late in the year),
a special schedule may be followed. Issue may not have allowed a request to OMB in
September, in which case there may have been one in October or November. But
decisions have to be make by the end of December. |
| The ultimate timing constraint is the need to prepare the final budget request for the
whole Federal government for submission to Congress no later than the first Monday in
February. |
Documents
Documents agency submits to OMB are privileged information. They become available only
after close of fiscal year to which they apply, at which point they are of interest for
historical research. After decisions are made about what to ask from Congress, the
request to OMB is only used for analysis by OMB (for example, to compare statements made
in prior years to those currently being made) or internal agency haggling over operating
plan development actions. (See documents.)
Links
None; process is confidential, on a "need to know" basis.
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