This page identifies apportionments approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that include restrictions or conditions that may be signs of OMB frustrating or defying congressional spending directives in appropriations laws. 

While these indicators may not, by themselves, constitute a violation of the Antideficiency Act or Impoundment Control Act, they are helpful for identifying apportionments that may place funds at risk for delay, expiration, or diversion from their appropriated purpose.

After Congress passes appropriations bills providing funding for agencies, OMB must apportion the funds to tell agencies when they may spend funds and subject to what conditions. For over a century, the apportionment process at OMB was largely ministerial, and approvals of apportionments of funds were routine. 

More recently, OMB has approached the apportionment process more aggressively. Congress responded on a bipartisan basis to require OMB to make apportionments public. 

While Congress gave the president the responsibility to apportion funds as a guardrail to prevent agencies from overspending, some uses – or arguably abuses – of the apportionment process risk delaying or preventing the spending or “obligation” of funds in accordance with directives from Congress. 

The indicators used to identify anomalous apportionments are described below, and rely on algorithms that automatically review apportionments and their text, and therefore may be inaccurate in some cases, particularly for new variations on footnote text or patterns of spending. Updated information is provided as OMB posts additional apportionments, which are made easily searchable at OpenOMB.org. 

Definitions of key terms

Definitions of key terms

Spend plan footnotes – Previously, OMB sometimes included a footnote in apportionments that required agencies to submit spending plans in order to begin spending funds. More recently, OMB has included in some apportionment footnotes language that prevents the agency from spending funds unless OMB approves a spend plan, and requires the agency to only spend funds “consistent with” an OMB-approved plan. Such spend plans may be used to require agencies to delay, divert, or withhold funds. A flag in the Spend Plan column indicates that an apportionment includes a legally binding “A” footnote that may require the agency to submit and/or comply with an OMB-approved spend plan before some or all of the apportioned funds are available for obligation.

Executive Order footnotes – Terms and conditions included in legally binding “A” footnotes are enforceable under the Antideficiency Act. In several apportionments, OMB has included language in such footnotes that purports to apply the policy changes, terms, or conditions in Executive Orders to some or all of the funds in the account. A flag in the E.O. column indicates that an apportionment includes one or more legally enforceable “A” footnotes that reference an Executive Order.

Unallocated Funds – One way that OMB apportions funds is a Category B action, making funds available for particular programs, projects, or activities. Funds apportioned to a Category B line that are described as “unallocated” are unavailable for the agency to spend in accordance with the purposes Congress outlined in the law. Such apportionments to “unallocated” Category B lines risk funds being delayed or expiring before they can be spent. A flag in the Unallocated Funds column indicates that an apportionment includes one or more Category B schedule lines with an “unallocated” description and a nonzero dollar amount.

Category C apportionments – One way OMB apportions funds is multi year or no year accounts is Category C actions that reserve funds for future years. Any funds apportioned under Category C are unavailable for obligation in the current fiscal year. In some cases uses of Category C apportionments may represent innocuous management of funds across multiple years of availability. In other cases, OMB has used Category C apportionments to delay or effectively cut funds that would otherwise have been spent in the current fiscal year in accordance with congressional spending directives. A flag in the Category C column indicates that an apportionment places a disproportionate share of funds in Category C relative to the account’s remaining years of availability.

Q4 Apportionments – One way OMB apportions funds is by time, making specific amounts of funds in an account available in a given quarter of the fiscal year. An agency is unable to spend funds apportioned for the fourth quarter, for example, until July, once the first three quarters of the fiscal year have passed. An apportionment that prevents an agency from spending a disproportionate amount of funds until late in the year risks the delay or expiration of those funds. It may also indicate an attempt to reserve funds to be proposed for rescission. A flag in the Q4 column indicates that an apportionment places more than 30% of total Category A funds in the fourth quarter.

Obligation freeze – Because “A” footnotes are legally binding, such footnotes that restrict the use of apportioned funds to salary and payroll expenses, basic operating expenses, close-out costs, and/or obligations required by law risk preventing agencies from spending the funds on the many other purposes laid out in the law by Congress. These footnotes risk freezing all program activity: agencies can keep the lights on and pay employees, but cannot make new grants, enter new contracts, or advance the program objectives that Congress funded. In some cases the footnote provides a path to unlock funds through an agreed-upon spend plan; in others, there is no unlock mechanism and program funds are frozen indefinitely. A flag in the Obligation Freeze column indicates that an apportionment may include an “A” footnote restricting obligations to salary, payroll, and legally mandated payments only.