Compendium of Budget Accounts: Fiscal Year 1999 (Staff Study, 04/01/98,
GAO/AIMD-98-115).
GAO presented a compendium of fiscal year (FY) 1999 budget accounts to
give users a convenient way to: (1) sort through the fiscal structure of
the federal government; and (2) determine the level of budgetary
resources--used, estimated, or requested by fiscal year--for individual
accounts.
GAO noted that: (1) this compendium follows the same organizational
pattern as that used in the budget of the United States Government, FY
1999 appendix; (2) account summaries for the legislative and judicial
branches precede listings for the executive branch, which is organized
alphabetically by major departments and agencies, followed by other
independent agencies; (3) individual accounts are then grouped by major
subordinate organization--usually a bureau, service, or
administration--or by major program area; (4) for each account, GAO
reports gross obligations in millions of nominal dollars; gross
obligations reflect a financial estimate of orders placed, contracts
awarded, services received, and other similar transactions during the
fiscal year; (5) GAO selected gross obligations as the display criterion
because it best describes the relative size of each budget account,
expressed in terms of financial commitments made within a given fiscal
year, without regard to the type of underlying budgetary resource or
when resulting outlays may occur; (6) in addition to the account title
and budgetary data by fiscal year, GAO appended two additional codes to
each account to enhance utility; (7) to provide perspective on mission
and purpose, each account includes a code reflecting the budget function
or subfunction most directly associated with the transactions financed
by that account; a general description of each function is provided at
the beginning of the account listing for each major department and
agency; (8) GAO has coded each account by the cognizant congressional
appropriations subcommittee to clarify the locus of congressional
oversight for the specific budget account; (9) appendix II summarizes
the cognizant congressional committee codes used in this document; and
(10) the general designation authorizing committee is used, either
singularly or in combination with an appropriations subcommittee
designation, for those accounts whose spending authority is provided, in
whole or in part, in laws other than appropriations acts.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: AIMD-98-115
TITLE: Compendium of Budget Accounts: Fiscal Year 1999
DATE: 04/01/98
SUBJECT: Presidential budgets
Future budget projections
Budget obligations
Appropriation accounts
Financial management
Budget authority
Budget functions
Budget outlays
Identification codes
IDENTIFIER: Social Security Trust Fund
Postal Service Fund
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Staff Study
April 1998
COMPENDIUM OF BUDGET ACCOUNTS -
FISCAL YEAR 1999
GAO/AIMD-98-115
Compendium of Budget Accounts
(935261)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
PREFACE
============================================================ Chapter 0
Each year the President is required by law to submit a budget to the
Congress.\1 This budget not only presents the President's policy
proposals for the "budget year," in this case fiscal year 1999, but
also congressionally enacted totals for the current year (1998) and
reported actual totals for the previous year (1997). In effect, the
President's submission analyzes and compiles separate presentations
for hundreds of budget accounts,\2 covering all fiscal activities of
the federal government, including "off-budget"\3
accounts such as the Social Security Trust Funds and the Postal
Service Fund. It also includes, as submitted, certain accounts which
by law, such as the legislative and judicial branch summaries, or by
practice are not subject to presidential review.
The President's budget is intended to address many objectives and
meet many information needs; more than two dozen requirements are
currently listed at 31 U.S.C. 1105. Accordingly, the budget
comprises a wealth of information in a daunting array of schedules,
tables, graphs, and narrative summaries. The comprehensiveness of
the President's budget submission is its principal strength, but also
creates its most obvious inconvenience--its sheer size and
complexity. For example, for fiscal year 1999, the President's
budget spanned 5 volumes\4 and over 2,500 pages.
We developed this compendium to give users a convenient way to sort
through the fiscal structure of the federal government and to
determine the level of budgetary resources--used, estimated, or
requested by fiscal year--for individual accounts.
--------------------
\1 31 U.S.C. 1104, 1105.
\2 A "budget account," essentially a separate reporting unit for
budgetary purposes, is defined as (1) an item for which
appropriations are made in any appropriation act and (2) for items
not provided for in appropriation acts, an item for which there is a
designated budget account identification code number in the
President's budget. (2 U.S.C. 900(c)(11)).
\3 "Off-budget" activities are those which are excluded from
"on-budget" totals by law.
\4 The five volumes of the President's Fiscal Year 1999 submission
include (1) the Budget, (2) the Appendix, (3) Analytical
Perspectives, (4) Historical Tables, and (5) A Citizen's Guide to the
Federal Budget. There are other derivative publications (e.g.,
Budget Information for States) published each year, but these are not
considered component parts of the basic submission.
HOW TO USE THIS DOCUMENT
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
This compendium follows the same organizational pattern as that used
in the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1999 -
Appendix (the Appendix). Account summaries for the legislative and
judicial branches precede listings for the executive branch, which is
organized alphabetically by major department and agency, followed by
other independent agencies. Individual accounts are then grouped by
major subordinate organization--usually a bureau, service, or
administration--or by major program area. For each account, we
report gross obligations in millions of nominal dollars; gross
obligations reflect a financial estimate of orders placed, contracts
awarded, services received, and other similar transactions during the
fiscal year. We selected gross obligations as the display criterion
because it best describes the relative size of each budget account,
expressed in terms of financial commitments made within a given
fiscal year, without regard to the type of underlying budgetary
resource or when resulting outlays may occur.\5
In addition to the account title and budgetary data by fiscal year,
we have appended two additional codes to each account to enhance
utility. First, to provide perspective on mission or purpose, each
account includes a code reflecting the budget function or
subfunction\6 most directly associated with the transactions financed
by that account; a general description of each function is provided
in appendix I and a summary of gross obligations by subfunction is
provided at the beginning of the account listing for each major
department and agency. Second, we have coded each account by the
cognizant congressional appropriations subcommittee to clarify the
locus of congressional oversight for the specific budget account.
Appendix II summarizes the cognizant congressional committee codes
used in this document. The general designation "authorizing
committee" is used, either singularly or in combination with an
appropriations subcommittee designation, for those accounts whose
spending authority is provided, in whole or in part, in laws other
than appropriations acts.
Table 1 describes the standard format followed for each grouping of
accounts.
Table 1
Format for Account Presentations
Column heading Description
-------------- ------------------------------------------------------
Account The name of the budget account title, as shown in the
(cognizant Appendix. At the end of each account title the
committee) cognizant congressional committee code (see appendix
II) is parenthetically appended. In some cases, a
given account will include both authorizing and
appropriations committee codes, indicating joint or
mixed oversight for some account components.
Acct. ID Each budget account title is assigned a multi-
position account identification code developed jointly
by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the
Department of the Treasury. For purposes of this
document, the first two digits, representing the
agency code, and the second four digits, representing
the basic account symbol, are sufficient to uniquely
identify the account.
Func. Each account is associated with a distinct three-
digit subfunction code reflecting its activities' most
important purpose(s). (See appendix I for a
descriptive listing of the budget functions.) If the
account is associated with two or more subfunctions,
the function code is used; if the account is
associated with two or more functions, the code "999"
is used.
Act. 1997 In millions of dollars; this represents the actual
gross obligations for fiscal year 1997 as recorded by
the agency.
Est. 1998 In millions of dollars; this represents the estimated
level of gross obligations based on enacted
appropriations; for indefinite appropriations this
represents amounts likely to be required.
Req. 1999 In millions of dollars; this represents the estimated
level of gross obligations based on requested levels
of budgetary resources. In effect, this represents the
President's policy proposal for fiscal year 1999.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For presentation purposes, the Appendix occasionally merges or
consolidates separate accounts under a single account title. For
example, the National Institutes of Health account title within the
Department of Health and Human Services includes 24 separate budget
accounts (as defined in footnote 2) consolidated into one
presentation in the President's Budget. Beginning with the fiscal
year 1997 budget submission, financial information in the Appendix
was rounded to the nearest million rather than nearest thousand.
This decision resulted in numerous account title changes as accounts
below $500,000 were consolidated or merged with larger accounts.\7
Occasionally, users will note that an account title will include no
gross obligations for a given year. Where this occurs for both 1997
and 1998 and some level of gross obligations is shown as requested
for 1999, this usually indicates a new account proposal by the
President. If only 1997 shows zero gross obligations, this typically
indicates an activity appropriated for 1998 and proposed to continue
during 1999. If only 1999 shows zero gross obligations, this usually
indicates that the account title has been merged or consolidated, or
has been or is being proposed for termination.
--------------------
\5 It should be noted that gross obligations, while useful to
describe account-level transactions, overstate department and
governmentwide totals. For example, a given account may include
obligations made to another budget account, which may then be
reobligated by the receiving account in the same fiscal year. Other
selection criteria, such as gross budgetary resources or net outlays,
could mitigate this effect but would also produce a different set of
concerns. For a discussion of this and other related issues, see
Budget Account Structure: A Descriptive Overview (GAO/AIMD-95-179,
September 18, 1995).
\6 The function and subfunction classification system is a way of
grouping budgetary resources according to the national need
addressed. The Congress uses this system in its concurrent
resolution on the budget to allocate resources among competing needs.
(See 2 U.S.C. 632.) Each account is generally placed in the single
function or subfunction which best reflects its major purpose,
without regard to agency or organizational distinctions. For
discussions of this classification system, see Budget Function
Classifications: Origins, Trends and Implications for Current Uses
(GAO/AIMD-98-67, February 27, 1998) and Budget Issues: Fiscal Year
1996 Agency Spending by Budget Function (GAO/AIMD-97-95, May 13,
1997).
\7 For financial management purposes, the Department of the Treasury
assigns a unique account code to each separate appropriation within
an appropriations act. Because of consolidations and mergers, the
President's submission typically presents a smaller universe of
accounts than that tracked by the Treasury. In 1996 for example,
Treasury reported about 1,620 accounts on an outlays basis, excluding
divisions due to differing periods of availability; the Appendix
listed about 1,040 accounts on a gross obligations basis.
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1.1
The account-level data in this compendium were extracted from
automated information collected and maintained by OMB as part of its
process to develop the President's fiscal year 1999 submission. We
did not independently verify the data reported for each account
although we did reconcile total obligations--for branches,
departments, and agencies and for selected individual accounts--to
published sources. If additional account-level detail is needed,
users should consult the index to the Appendix for the page number of
the specific account identified in this compendium.
This document was prepared principally to assist GAO staff members
and other interested researchers in coping with the complexity of the
annual federal budget. We will also send copies of this document to
interested congressional parties and others on request.
This compendium of accounts was prepared by John Mingus under the
direction of Michael J. Curro, Assistant Director. If there are any
questions, please call (202) 512-9573.
Paul L. Posner
Director, Budget Issues
Accounting and Information Management Division
============================================================ Chapter 1
CONTENTS
============================================================ Chapter 2
PREFACE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:1
1
COMPENDIUM OF BUDGET ACCOUNTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:2
8
Legislative Branch 9
Judicial Branch 13
Department of Agriculture 15
Department of Commerce 22
Department of Defense--Military 26
Department of Education 31
Department of Energy 34
Department of Health and Human Services 37
Department of Housing and Urban Development 41
Department of the Interior 44
Department of Justice 50
Department of Labor 54
Department of State 56
Department of Transportation 58
Department of the Treasury 63
Department of Veterans Affairs 68
Corps of Engineers 71
Other Defense Civil Programs 72
Environmental Protection Agency 74
Executive Office of the President 75
Federal Emergency Management Agency 78
General Services Administration 79
International Assistance Programs 80
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 85
National Science Foundation 86
Office of Personnel Management 87
Small Business Administration 88
Social Security Administration 89
Other Independent Agencies 90
Allowances 106
Federal Government Totals 107
APPENDIX I
BUDGET FUNCTIONS AND
SUBFUNCTIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:3
108
APPENDIX II
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE CODES
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:4
112
TABLE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 2:5
Table 1: Format for Account Presentations 3
COMPENDIUM OF BUDGET ACCOUNTS
============================================================ Chapter 3
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BUDGET FUNCTIONS AND SUBFUNCTIONS
=========================================================== Appendix I
Function Description Subfunction
----------- ------------------------------------- ----------------------------
National Common defense and security of the Department of Defense--
Defense United States, including raising, Military (051)
(050) equipping, and maintaining of armed
forces; development and utilization Atomic Energy Defense
of weapons systems; direct Activities (053)
compensation and benefits paid to
active military and civilian Defense-related Activities
personnel; defense research, (054)
development, testing, and evaluation;
and procurement, construction,
stockpiling, and other activities
undertaken to directly foster
national security.
Internation Maintaining peaceful relations, International Development
al Affairs commerce, and travel between the and Humanitarian Assistance
(150) United States and the rest of the (151)
world and promoting international
security and economic development International Security
abroad. Assistance (152)
Conduct of Foreign Affairs
(153)
Foreign Information and
Exchange Activities (154)
International Financial
Programs (155)
General Resources allocated to science and General Science and Basic
Science, research activities of the federal Research (251)
Space and government that are not an integral
Technology part of the programs conducted under Space Flight, Research, and
(250) any other function. Supporting Activities (252)
Energy Promoting an adequate supply and Energy Supply (271)
(270) appropriate use of energy to serve
the needs of the economy. Energy Conservation (272)
Emergency Energy
Preparedness (274)
Energy Information, Policy,
and Regulation (276)
Natural Developing, managing, and maintaining Water Resources (301)
Resources the nation's natural resources and
and environment. Conservation and Land
Environment Management (302)
(300)
Recreational Resources
(303)
Pollution Control and
Abatement (304)
Other Natural Resources
(306)
Agriculture Promoting the economic stability of Farm Income Stabilization
(350) agriculture and the nation's (351)
capability to maintain and increase
agricultural production. Agricultural Research and
Services (352)
Commerce Promotion and regulation of commerce Mortgage Credit (371)
and Housing and the housing credit and deposit
Credit insurance industries, which pertain Postal Service (372)
(370) to collection and dissemination of
social and economic data (unless they Deposit Insurance (373)
are an integral part of another
function, such as health); general Other Advancement Of
purpose subsidies to business, Commerce (376)
including credit subsidies to the
housing industry; and the Postal
Service fund and general fund
subsidies of that fund.
Transportat Providing for the transportation of Ground Transportation (401)
ion (400) the general public and/or its
property, regardless of whether local Air Transportation (402)
or national and regardless of the
particular mode of transportation. Water Transportation (403)
Included are construction of
facilities; purchase of equipment; Other Transportation (407)
research, testing, and evaluation;
provision of communications related
to transportation; operating
subsidies for transportation
facilities and industries; and
regulatory activities directed
specifically toward the
transportation industry rather than
toward business.
Community Development of physical facilities or Community Development (451)
and financial infrastructures designed to
Regional promote viable community economies. Area and Regional
Development Development (452)
(450)
Disaster Relief and
Insurance (453)
Education, Promoting the extension of knowledge Elementary, Secondary, and
Training, and skills, enhancing employment and Vocational Education (501)
Employment, employment opportunities, protecting
and Social workplace standards, and providing Higher Education (502)
Services services to the needy.
(500) Research and General
Education Aids (503)
Training and Employment
(504)
Other Labor Services (505)
Social Services (506)
Health Programs other than medicare whose Health Care Services (551)
(550) basic purpose is to promote physical
and mental health, including the Health Research and Training
prevention of illness and accidents. (552)
Consumer and Occupational
Health and Safety (554)
Medicare Federal hospital insurance and Medicare (571)
(570) federal supplementary medical
insurance, along with general fund
subsidies of these funds and
associated offsetting receipts.
Income Support payments (including General Retirement and
Security associated administrative expenses) Disability Insurance
(600) to persons for whom no current (excluding Social Security)
service is rendered. Included are (601)
retirement, disability, unemployment,
welfare, and similar programs, except Federal Employee Retirement
for social security and income and Disability (602)
security for veterans, which are in
other functions. Unemployment Compensation
(603)
Housing Assistance (604)
Food and Nutrition
Assistance (605)
Other Income Security (609)
Social Federal old age and survivors and Social Security (651)
Security disability insurance trust funds,
(650) along with general fund subsidies of
these funds and associated offsetting
collections.
Veterans Programs providing benefits and Income Security for Veterans
Benefits services, the eligibility for which (701)
and is related to prior military service,
Services but the financing of which is not an Veterans Education,
(700) integral part of the costs of Training, and Rehabilitation
national defense. (702)
Hospital and Medical Care
For Veterans (703)
Veterans Housing (704)
Other Veterans Benefits and
Services (705)
Administrat Programs to provide judicial Federal Law Enforcement
ion of services, police protection, law Activities (751)
Justice enforcement (including civil rights),
(750) rehabilitation and incarceration of Federal Litigative and
criminals, and the general Judicial Activities (752)
maintenance of domestic order.
Federal Correctional
Activities (753)
Criminal Justice Assistance
(754)
General General overhead cost of the federal Legislative Functions (801)
Government government, including legislative and
(800) executive activities; provision of Executive Direction and
central fiscal, personnel, and Management (802)
property activities; and provision of
services that cannot reasonably be Central Fiscal Operations
classified in any other major (803)
function.
General Property and Records
Management (804)
Central Personnel Management
(805)
General Purpose Fiscal
Assistance (806)
Other General Government
(808)
Deductions for Offsetting
Receipts (809)
Net Transactions which directly give rise Interest on the Public Debt
Interest to interest payments or income (901)
(900) (lending) and the general short fall
or excess of outgo over income Interest Received by On-
arising out of fiscal, monetary, and Budget Trust Funds (902)
other policy considerations and
leading to the creation of interest- Interest Received by Off-
bearing debt instruments (normally Budget Trust Funds (903)
the public debt).
Other Interest (908)
Undistribut Offsetting receipts which are not Employer Share, employee
ed included as deductions from outlays retirement (on budget)
Offsetting in the applicable function or (951)
Receipts subfunction, above, and are thus
(950) "undistributed." Employer Share, employee
retirement (off budget)
(952)
Rents and Royalties on the
Outer Continental Shelf
(953)
Sales of Major Assets (954)
Other Undistributed
Offsetting Receipts (959)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Subfunction code 999 is assigned to those budget accounts
whose activities are associated with two or more functions.
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE CODES
========================================================== Appendix II
Congressional Committee
-------- ------------------------------------------------------------
AU Authorizing Committee
[Committee on Appropriations]
AR Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and Related
Agencies
CJ Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary
DE Subcommittee on Defense /National Security
DI Subcommittee on the District of Columbia
EW Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development
FA Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and
Related Agencies
IN Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies
LA Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education
LB Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch
MC Subcommittee on Military Construction
TR Subcommittee on Transportation
TY Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General
Government
VA Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban
Development, and Independent Agencies
----------------------------------------------------------------------
*** End of document. ***