GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to the Chairman, Committee on

the Budget, House of Representatives

May 2000 BUDGET ISSUES

Budget Enforcement

Compliance Report

GAO/AIMD-00-174

Page 1 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Contents

Letter 3

Appendixes Appendix I: Background and Scope and Methodology 8

Appendix II: Compliance Issues 15

Appendix III: Implementation Issues 19

Appendix IV: Emergency Spending 37

Appendix V: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 42

Tables Table 1: Sequestration Reports and Due Dates 9

Table 2: Discretionary Spending Categories by Fiscal Year 10

Table 3: Timing of OMB Sequestration Reports 15

Table 4: Percentage of OMB Scoring Reports Issued Late 17

Table 5: CBO and OMB Estimates of Fiscal Year 2000

Appropriations Compared to Adjusted Caps 24

Table 6: Provisions with More than $500 Million Difference

Between OMB and CBO Estimates 26

Table 7: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for

Consolidated Appropriations Act 30

Table 8: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for Medicare,

Medicaid, and SCHIP 30

Table 9: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for Veterans

Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act 31

Table 10: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for

Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement

Act of 1999 33

Table 11: Adjustments to the Discretionary Spending Caps in the Final

Sequestration Reports 35

Table 12: Emergency Budget Authority, Fiscal Years 1991-2000 37

Table 13: Emergency Spending, Fiscal Year 2000 39

Abbreviations

BEA Budget Enforcement Act of 1990

BEA-97 Budget Enforcement Act of 1997

CBO Congressional Budget Office

DCA Deficit Control Act

EITC Earned Income Tax Credit

GRH Gramm-Rudman-Hollings
Contents

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OBRA 93 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993

OMB Office of Management and Budget

PAYGO pay-as-you-go

SCHIP State Children's Health Insurance Program

TEA-21 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century

VA Department of Veterans Affairs
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United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Accounting and Information

Management Division

B-285122 Leter

May 31, 2000

The Honorable John R. Kasich

Chairman

Committee on the Budget

House of Representatives

Dear Mr. Chairman:

This report responds to your request that we assess compliance by the

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Congressional Budget

Office (CBO) with the requirements of the Balanced Budget and

Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, as amended (the Deficit Control

Act). Our assessment covers OMB and CBO reports issued for legislation

enacted during the 1st session of the 106th Congress, which ended on

November 22, 1999.

According to CBO’s Final Sequestration Report issued on December 2,

1999, discretionary outlays for all spending categories combined are

estimated to exceed the spending limits by $16.6 billion for fiscal year 2000.

CBO estimated that a 4 percent sequestration would be required for the

Overall Discretionary category. In contrast, OMB’s Final Sequestration

Report, issued on January 25, 2000, estimated than no sequestration of

discretionary spending will be required for fiscal year 2000. Since by law

OMB’s estimates are controlling, there will be no sequester in fiscal year

2000.

Background information on the budget enforcement process, the various

reports required by the act, and details concerning our scope and

methodology are discussed in appendix I.

Our work was conducted in Washington, D.C., from August 1999 through

May 2000 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing

standards. We provided a draft of this report to OMB and CBO officials for

their review and comment. OMB and CBO officials agreed with our

presentation of their views and the facts as presented. We incorporated

their comments where appropriate.
B-285122

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Results in Brief Overall, we found that OMB and CBO substantially complied with the act.

However, some of the required OMB reports were issued late. This issue is

discussed further in appendix II. The Deficit Control Act (DCA) sets a

specific timetable for issuance of OMB reports. By law, OMB must issue

sequestration reports at three specific times during the calendar year:

(1) the preview report when the President submits his budget, (2) the

update on August 20, and (3) the final report 15 days after the end of a

congressional session.1 OMB issued its fiscal year 2000 Sequestration

Update Report on August 25, 1999—5 days late. Its final sequestration

report for fiscal year 2000 was issued on January 25, 2000—49 days later

than the required date of December 7, 1999. The extremely late issuance of

OMB’s final report resulted in the late issuance of CBO’s fiscal year 2001

Sequestration Preview Report. DCA requires that CBO issue a

sequestration preview report for the coming fiscal year 5 days before the

President submits his budget to the Congress. This report contains updated

estimates of discretionary spending limits based on adjustments set forth in

law and an estimate of any net increase or decrease in the deficit or surplus

caused by entitlement or revenue legislation enacted. CBO uses the

discretionary spending limits (caps) included in OMB’s Final Sequestration

Report as the starting point for the adjustments that it publishes in its

Preview Report. Because OMB’s final sequestration report for fiscal year

2000 was issued so late (49 days later than required), CBO did not have the

data needed to use as the starting point to update its estimates for fiscal

year 2001 and issue its report in a timely manner. This in turn meant that

OMB did not have CBO’s published adjustments to include in the OMB

fiscal year 2001 Preview Report, published in the President’s budget, which

was issued in February 2000.

As has been the case for the past 3 fiscal years, OMB issued most of its

fiscal year 2000 scorekeeping reports late. For fiscal year 2000, OMB issued

a total of 4 discretionary scorekeeping reports (covering 11 pieces of

enacted legislation) and 13 pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) reports.2 Of these 17

reports, all but one (a PAYGO report) were issued later than the time

specified by law. The law requires that these reports be issued 7 working

days after enactment of the relevant piece of legislation. On average, the

1

CBO has similar reporting requirements.

2

Although CBO issued scorekeeping reports on 53 PAYGO bills enacted during this session

of Congress, OMB elected to no longer issue PAYGO scorekeeping reports for legislation

where OMB and CBO estimate zero or negligible budget impact.
B-285122

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fiscal year 2000 discretionary spending reports were 39 working days late

and the PAYGO reports were 7 working days late. OMB’s timeliness on

these reports has continued to be a problem. Excluding final sequestration

reports, 94 percent of the fiscal year 2000 reports were late; 83 percent of

the fiscal year 1999 reports were late; 50 percent of the 1998 reports3 were

late; and about 70 percent of the 1997 reports were late.4

The extremely late issuance of OMB’s final sequestration report could have

had an impact on the report’s usefulness for its original purposes. For

example, if a sequestration had been required for fiscal year 2000 based

upon OMB’s estimates of the budgetary effects of enacted legislation, the

sequester could not have begun until near the end of January 2000—several

months into the fiscal year—which would have magnified the effect of the

sequestration for the remaining months.

As you requested, we also looked at implementation issues. We further

discuss in appendix III three areas in which CBO and OMB differ on

(1) appropriations scoring, (2) PAYGO scoring, and (3) discretionary

spending cap adjustments. In fiscal year 2000, as in fiscal year 1999, the

emergency designation was used more broadly than had been the case in

previous years. This is discussed in appendix IV.

CBO and OMB differed substantially on the scoring treatment of H.R. 3425,

the Miscellaneous Appropriations Act, 2000. The scoring differences

resulted from different applications of the directed scoring provision

contained in the act. CBO interpreted the scoring direction as requiring that

all of the act’s provisions be scored as PAYGO, resulting in $7.3 billion of

PAYGO savings. OMB, in an attempt to reflect the budget agreement the

administration had negotiated with congressional leadership, scored only

some of the provisions as PAYGO and others as offsets to discretionary

spending, reducing discretionary outlays by $9.5 billion and increasing

PAYGO spending by $35 million.

3

Reports issued in fiscal year 1998 were governed by two different criteria. Those issued

before August 5, 1997, were required to be issued within 5 calendar days of enactment.

Those issued after that date were required to be issued within 7 working days of enactment.

Nearly 78 percent of the reports issued before the change in criteria were late compared

with 48 percent issued after the change in criteria.

4

OMB attributes the increased delay to the concentration of legislation at the end of the

session. Both the lateness of appropriations action and the size of the bills enacted late in

the year means that reports come due during the budget crunch period. This factor was

cited in previous years as well.
B-285122

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CBO and OMB also differed substantially in scoring other appropriation

acts. We identified a total of 456 scoring differences between CBO and

OMB in either budget authority or outlays. However, most of these

differences were small, with nearly 75 percent less than $100 million and

fewer than 7 percent greater than $500 million. Of the 31 differences

greater than $500 million, 19 were due to long-standing differences in the

way CBO and OMB treat contingent emergencies.5 The remaining

differences were due to different DCA categorization, different estimates of

Highway and Mass Transit spending, different outlay rate estimates, and

different estimates of the rate of receipts.

CBO and OMB differed substantially in PAYGO scoring of three pieces of

enacted legislation. CBO and OMB differed in their estimates of the impact

of the provisions contained in the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Balanced

Budget Refinement Act of 1999 by about $1 billion. CBO estimated that the

provisions of the Veterans Millenium Health Care and Benefits Act would

cost about $1.2 billion over the 5-year period 2000–2004 whereas OMB

estimated that the legislation would cost $96 million over the same period.

CBO estimated the cost of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives

Improvement Act of 1999 at $15.5 billion from 2000 through 2004, while

OMB estimated the costs at $17.9 billion over the same period.

To assess compliance with the Deficit Control Act, we reviewed OMB and

CBO reports issued under the act to determine if they complied with all of

the act’s requirements. To accomplish this, we reviewed the OMB and CBO

preview, update, and final sequestration reports to determine if they

reflected all of the technical requirements specified in DCA, such as

(1) estimates of the discretionary spending limits, (2) explanations of any

adjustments to the limits, (3) estimates of the amount of net deficit

increase or decrease, and (4) the sequestration percentages necessary to

achieve the required reduction in the event of a sequester. In addition we

reviewed the scorekeeping reports issued by OMB and CBO to (1) identify

major scoring differences and (2) determine the timeliness of the reports.

We are sending copies of this report to The Honorable Jacob J. Lew,

Director, Office of Management and Budget; The Honorable Dan Crippen,

Director, Congressional Budget Office; Representative John Spratt,

5

In OMB’s sequestration Preview Report, issued February 7, 2000, OMB reported that it

plans to change its scoring of budget authority for contingent emergency appropriations to

be consistent with congressional scoring practice.
B-285122

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Representative C.W. Bill Young, Representative David R. Obey, Senator

Pete V. Domenici, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Senator Ted Stevens, and

Senator Robert Byrd in their capacities as Chair or Ranking Minority

Member of Senate and House Committees. Copies will be made available to

other interested parties on request. Please contact me at (202) 512-9142 if

you or your staff have any questions. Major contributors to this report are

listed in appendix V.

Sincerely yours,

Susan J. Irving

Associate Director, Budget Issues
Page 8 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology AAppenendxdieixIs

DCA,1 as amended, established statutory limits on federal government

spending for fiscal years 1991 through 2002 by creating

• annual adjustable dollar limits (spending caps) on discretionary

spending funded through the regular appropriations process,

• a pay-as-you-go (PAYGO)2 requirement for direct spending3 and receipts

legislation, and

• a sequestration4 procedure to be triggered if (1) aggregate discretionary

appropriations enacted for a fiscal year exceed the fiscal year’s

discretionary spending caps or (2) aggregate PAYGO legislation is

estimated to increase the combined current and budget year deficits.

To track progress against the budget enforcement requirements and to

implement any needed sequestration, DCA requires CBO and OMB to score

(estimate) the budgetary effects of each appropriation action and each

piece of PAYGO legislation. As soon as practicable after the Congress

completes action on an appropriation or on PAYGO legislation, CBO is

required to report to OMB the estimated amount of new budget authority

and outlays provided by the legislation. Within 7 working days after an

appropriation or PAYGO legislation is enacted, OMB must report its

estimates for these amounts, using the same economic and technical

assumptions underlying the most recent budget submission. It must also

include the CBO estimates and explain any differences between the two

sets of estimates. If there are significant differences between the OMB and

CBO estimates, OMB is required to consult with the budget committees

prior to issuing its scoring report.

1

The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 as amended by the Budget

Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA), the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA 93),

and the Budget Enforcement Act of 1997 (BEA-97). In addition to being known as the Deficit

Control Act, it is sometimes called Gramm-Rudman-Hollings or GRH. It is also referred to as

BEA since that legislation amended GRH in 1990 by adding the current discretionary

spending caps and PAYGO procedures.

2

DCA requires that the aggregate effect of new legislation that increases direct spending or

decreases receipts be deficit neutral (that is, not increase the deficit). Such legislation is

often referred to as PAYGO legislation. OMB and CBO have interpreted the PAYGO

requirement as applying to surpluses as well; the aggregate effect of new legislation must

not decrease the surplus.

3

Direct spending (commonly referred to as mandatory spending) means entitlement

authority, the food stamp program, and any budget authority provided by laws other than in

appropriation acts.

4

Sequestration is the cancellation of budgetary resources.
Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology

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DCA also requires CBO and OMB to submit a series of three sequestration

reports at specified times during each year, as shown in table 1. CBO and

OMB reports include a discretionary sequestration report that adjusts the

discretionary spending caps and a PAYGO sequestration report that

displays the net decrease or increase in the deficit or surplus for enacted

PAYGO legislation. Because OMB’s reports control for purposes of

sequestration, CBO uses estimates from OMB’s most recent sequestration

report as the starting point for each of its reports.

Table 1: Sequestration Reports and Due Dates

Discretionary Spending

Limits

Annual discretionary spending limits for budget authority and outlays are

set forth in the Deficit Control Act. The Budget Enforcement Act of 1997

amended DCA to establish three separate categories of discretionary

spending for 1998 and 1999: defense, nondefense excluding violent crime

reduction spending, and violent crime reduction spending. For fiscal year

2000, defense and nondefense are combined, resulting in two categories—

violent crime reduction spending and all other discretionary spending.5 For

2001 and 2002 these are combined into a single category. The

Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)6 altered the

spending cap structure by establishing two new outlay caps that apply

separately to highway and mass transit programs for 1999 and continue

through 2003. (See table 2.) Since these programs had been included under

the nondefense cap, the nondefense cap for 1999 and the Overall

Due date

Report CBO OMB

Preview report 5 days before President’s

budget submission

President’s budget

submission

Update report August 15 August 20

Final report 10 days after end of

congressional session

15 days after end of

congressional session

5

CBO refers to the spending category that encompasses all other discretionary spending as

“Overall Discretionary” while OMB refers to it as “Other Discretionary.”

6

Title VIII of TEA-21 (P.L. 105-178, enacted June 9, 1998) amended DCA to add these two new

caps. These caps continue for 2003 even though DCA caps only exist through 2002.
Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology

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Discretionary caps for 2000, 2001, and 2002 were reduced. Because the new

caps on highway and mass transit outlays exceed the reductions in the

other caps by about $15.4 billion, the amount of total discretionary outlays

permitted under all of the caps has been increased for each year from 1999

through 2002.

Table 2: Discretionary Spending Categories by Fiscal Year

Note: The Highway and Mass Transit categories were formerly included in the nondefense category.

DCA provides that adjustments be made to the discretionary limits for

certain specified reasons. The limits must be adjusted for (1) changes in

concepts and definitions, (2) emergency appropriations, (3) funding for

continuing disability reviews, (4) funding for International Monetary Fund

(IMF) increases, (5) international arrearages funding, (6) the earned

income tax credit compliance initiative, and (7) a special outlay allowance

to cover technical scoring differences between OMB and CBO. In addition

to adjustments to the limits required by DCA, TEA-21 added adjustments

for the two transportation caps. It requires that OMB adjust the highway

spending caps in each year’s sequestration Preview Report to reflect

differences between current and future estimates of revenues that will be

credited to the Highway Trust Fund. It also requires that both

transportation caps be adjusted each year to reflect any changes in

technical estimates of the outlays that will result from the TEA-21 funding

levels.

The spending limits are to be enforced by sequestration should budget

authority or outlays exceed the statutory limits. CBO reported in its Final

Sequestration Report that total discretionary outlays for all categories

combined are estimated to exceed the adjusted caps by $16.6 billion for

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Violent Crime

Reduction

Violent Crime

Reduction

Violent Crime

Reduction

Overall

Discretionary

Overall

Discretionary

Defense Defense Overall

Discretionary

Nondefense Nondefense

Highway Highway Highway Highway

Mass Transit Mass Transit Mass Transit Mass Transit
Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology

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fiscal year 2000. CBO estimated that this would require a sequestration of

about 4 percent of budget authority for the Overall Discretionary category.7

In contrast, OMB’s final sequestration report estimated that no

sequestration of discretionary funding would be required for fiscal year

2000. Since by law OMB’s estimates control for purposes of sequestration,

there will be no sequester in fiscal year 2000.

In addition, the law specifies that for a fiscal year in progress, if an

appropriation enacted between end-of-session adjournment and July 1 of

that fiscal year causes any of the spending limits for the year in progress to

be exceeded, CBO and OMB must issue within-session sequestration

reports 10 and 15 days, respectively, after enactment. On the same day as

the OMB report, the President must issue an order implementing any

sequestrations set forth in the OMB report. No within-session sequestration

reports were required for fiscal year 1999.

Pay-As-You-Go

Enforcement

PAYGO enforcement covers all direct spending and receipts legislation.

CBO and OMB maintain a “scorecard” showing the cumulative

deficit/surplus effect of PAYGO legislation to track progress against the

PAYGO requirements. If, at the end of a congressional session, cumulative

legislated changes enacted in direct spending and receipts result in a net

cost, a sequester of nonexempt direct spending programs is required to

offset the cost. When determining the need for sequestration the estimates

for the budget year and those for the current year that were not included in

the final sequestration report for the current year are combined. Effective

on its enactment, BEA-97 set the scorecard balance to zero for the thencurrent year and for each subsequent year through fiscal year 2002. This

prevented any net savings achieved by legislation enacted prior to the

enactment of BEA-97 from being used to offset deficit-increasing

legislation enacted through 2002. The Consolidated Appropriations Act,

2000 (P.L. 106-113) required OMB to reset the PAYGO scorecard to zero on

January 3, 2000. Although the BEA expires in 2002, the sequestration

procedure applies through 2006 to eliminate any projected net costs

stemming from PAYGO legislation enacted through fiscal year 2002.

7

Had CBO scored certain provisions contained in H.R. 3425 as discretionary offsets rather

than as direct spending, the required sequestration would have been 3 percent. See

discussion in appendix III on Scoring of H.R. 3425, the Miscellaneous Appropriations Act,

2000.
Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology

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In their final sequestration reports, both OMB and CBO calculate the net

change in the deficit or surplus due to PAYGO legislation. However, the

OMB report is the sole basis for determining whether any end-of-session

sequestration is required. If OMB determines that sequestration is required,

the President must issue an order implementing it. For fiscal year 2000,

both CBO’s report, issued December 2, 1999, and OMB’s report, issued

January 25, 2000, concluded that a PAYGO sequester was not needed.

Changes to the Deficit

Control Act Proposed

by the Administration

In OMB’s fiscal year 2001 Preview Report, the administration proposed

several changes to DCA.8 Although the administration has not yet proposed

legislation to make these changes, the Preview Report suggested that the

following proposals could be forthcoming.

• Revision and extension of discretionary spending caps: The

administration proposed to revise and extend the discretionary

spending caps through 2010. Beginning in fiscal year 2001, the caps

would be revised to “reflect the cost of maintaining the operation of the

Federal Government at currently enacted levels into the future.” The

administration’s proposed changes to the discretionary caps would

increase discretionary spending at about the same pace as inflation. The

proposals would also reinstate the inflation adjustment, included in the

original BEA of 1990 in which higher than expected inflation permitted

the caps to be adjusted upward.

• New discretionary spending category: The administration would

permit the highway and mass transit spending caps to expire in fiscal

year 2003, as currently provided in law. However, in fiscal year 2001 a

new discretionary spending category and an associated cap would be

established for the Lands Legacy initiative.

• New technical spending cap adjustment: The administration

proposed a new technical cap adjustment for section 8 housing contract

renewals, which it described as consistent with the existing DCA

adjustment to the discretionary baseline.

• Extension of PAYGO rules: The administration also proposed to

extend the PAYGO enforcement system to fiscal year 2010.

• Restoration of budgetary conventions: The administration proposed

a restoration of “traditional budgetary treatment” for certain items

where “appropriations departed from budgetary conventions.” The first

8

Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001, Analytical Perspectives,

February 7, 2000.
Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology

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such proposal is to replace certain fiscal year 2001 advance

appropriations with full, up-front funding in fiscal year 2000. Second, the

administration proposes to reverse several obligation delays and timing

shifts that would otherwise delay several spending items until fiscal year

2001. Since the administration has not formally proposed legislation to

make these adjustments, it is unclear how these adjustments would be

made and what effect they would have on the discretionary spending

caps in either fiscal year 2000 or 2001.

Changes in OMB’s

Budget Scoring

After consulting with the congressional budget committees and the

Congressional Budget Office, OMB agreed to make two changes to budget

scoring and to adjust the discretionary spending caps accordingly. The first

change concerns receipts from purchase power and wheeling activities

associated with the Department of Energy’s power marketing

administrations. These receipts have been reclassified from mandatory to

discretionary. Because scoring these receipts as discretionary reduces net

discretionary budget authority and outlays, the spending caps will be

reduced by approximately $60 million in both fiscal years 2001 and 2002.

The second change has to do with scoring for contingent emergency

appropriations.9 When the Congress designates an appropriation as a

contingent emergency, the funds are not available for obligation until the

President designates the appropriation as an emergency as well. In the

past, OMB scored contingent emergency appropriations when the

President designated them as “emergency requirements” and then

increased the discretionary spending caps by the budget authority made

available and the estimated outlays. In its fiscal year 2001 Preview Report,

OMB stated that it will follow the CBO practice and score budget authority

for these items after the Congress has completed action on those items; it

will score outlays when the President releases the funds.

Scope and

Methodology

To determine whether the OMB and CBO reports complied with the

requirements of DCA as amended by BEA and other legislation, we

reviewed the OMB and CBO preview, update, and final sequestration

reports to determine if they reflected all of the technical requirements

9

In its fiscal year 2001 Preview Report, OMB adjusted its scoring of the 2000 appropriations

acts and the resulting discretionary spending caps to conform with this change.
Appendix I

Background and Scope and Methodology

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specified in DCA, such as (1) estimates of the discretionary spending limits,

(2) explanations of any adjustments to the limits, (3) estimates of the

amount of net deficit increase or decrease, and (4) the sequestration

percentages necessary to achieve the required reduction in the event of a

sequester.

We reviewed legislation dealing with budget enforcement, including DCA,

as amended, TEA-21, and the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000. We

reviewed appropriations acts enacted during the first session of the 106th

Congress—the two supplemental emergency appropriations for fiscal year

1999, the seven continuing appropriations measures, the eight separately

enacted regular appropriations for fiscal year 2000, and the five

appropriations bills included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, as

well as all applicable OMB and CBO appropriations scoring reports issued

as of January 3, 2000. We also examined the OMB and CBO PAYGO scoring

reports for mandatory spending and receipts legislation. We compared

each OMB and CBO report and obtained explanations for differences of

$500 million or more in estimates for the PAYGO reports. For discretionary

spending, we compared OMB and CBO scoring reports and obtained

explanations for differences of $500 million or more in budget authority or

outlay estimates. We examined OMB and CBO adjustments to the

discretionary spending limits for the preview, update, and final

sequestration reports. We also examined appropriations scoring reports for

patterns in reasons for differences between OMB and CBO, irrespective of

the dollar amounts. During the course of our work, we also interviewed

OMB and CBO officials.

Our work was performed in Washington, D.C., from August 1999 through

May 2000, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing

standards. We provided a draft of this report to OMB and CBO officials for

their review and comment. OMB and CBO officials agreed with our

presentation of their views and the facts as presented. We incorporated

their comments where appropriate.
Page 15 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Appendix II

Compliance Issues ApendixI

The only compliance issues we found related to the timing of required

reports: (1) OMB issued both the update and final sequestration reports

later than the law requires and (2) OMB issued most of its scorekeeping

reports late. Each of these issues is discussed in more detail below.

OMB Issued

Sequestration Reports

Late

DCA sets a specific timetable for issuance of OMB reports, as shown in

table 3.1

Table 3: Timing of OMB Sequestration Reports

OMB met the timing requirement only for the Preview Report. The

Sequestration Update Report was issued 5 days late on August 25, 1999.

The Final Sequestration Report was issued 49 days late on January 25, 2000

(more than 2 months after the end of the congressional session). The

extremely late issuance of OMB’s Final Report resulted in the late issuance

of CBO’s fiscal year 2001 Preview Report. As a result, OMB’s 2001 Preview

Report did not include CBO’s published adjustments.

DCA requires that CBO issue a sequestration preview report 5 days before

the President submits his budget to the Congress. This report contains

updated estimates of discretionary spending limits based on adjustments

set forth in law and an estimate of any net increase or decrease in the

deficit or surplus caused by entitlement or revenue legislation enacted. As

stated above, on the same day the President submits his budget to the

Congress, OMB is required to issue its sequestration preview report. The

OMB report contains the same information as the CBO report along with an

explanation of any differences between its estimates and those of CBO.

CBO uses the discretionary spending limits (caps) included in OMB’s final

report as the starting point for the adjustments CBO publishes in its

Preview Report. Because OMB’s Final Report for fiscal year 2000 was

1

CBO has similar reporting requirements.

Report Date

Preview report With President’s budget (first Monday in February)

Update report August 20

Final report 15 days after the end of the congressional session
Appendix II

Compliance Issues

Page 16 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

issued 49 days later than required, CBO did not have the data needed to use

as the starting point to update its estimates for fiscal year 2001 and so was

forced to delay the issuance of its report later than the deadline. As a

consequence of this, OMB’s 2001 Preview Report, published in the

President’s budget, did not include CBO’s published adjustments for fiscal

year 2001.2

OMB has issued late sequestration reports in past years also. In our report

covering fiscal year 1999 compliance, we reported that OMB issued its

Final Report 35 days late (50 days after the end of the congressional

session).3 One of the factors that contributed to the late issuance in that

case was the conflicting requirements of DCA. If OMB had issued its report

on the required date, the report would have excluded the impact of

numerous pieces of legislation—legislation that either the President had

not signed before DCA’s 15-day deadline or for which scorekeeping reports

had not been issued.4 We reported a similar situation in our report covering

fiscal year 1997 compliance when OMB delayed the Final Report in order to

include all enacted legislation.5 However, OMB has not always delayed its

final report in order to include all enacted legislation. In our report

covering fiscal year 1998 compliance, we reported that because OMB

issued the Final Report several days before the statutory deadline it did not

include several pieces of enacted legislation in the Final Report.

6 That year,

as permitted by DCA, the PAYGO effect of these provisions was simply

carried over to the Preview Report for the following year.

2

OMB attributed the delay in issuing its Final Report for fiscal year 2000 to the lateness of

legislation, leading to a situation in which many of its scorekeeping reports were due during

its busiest time of the year—when it was preparing the President’s budget. As discussed in

appendix I, OMB is supposed to issue these reports within 7 working days after an

appropriation or PAYGO legislation is enacted. Because the final sequestration report covers

all legislation enacted during a congressional session, late scorekeeping reports can affect

its timing as well. According to OMB, the lateness of appropriation action and the magnitude

of legislation enacted at the end of the year caused it to miss its reporting deadline.

3

Budget Issues: Budget Enforcement Compliance Report (GAO/AIMD-99-100, April 1, 1999).

4

Although the President is required to act on legislation 10 days, except Sundays, after it is

presented to him by the Congress, there can be delays between final congressional action

and when the measure is formally presented to the President for signature.

5

Budget Issues: Budget Enforcement Compliance Report (GAO/AIMD-97-28, January 16,

1997).

6

Budget Issues: Budget Enforcement Compliance Report (GAO/AIMD-98-57, January 23,

1998).
Appendix II

Compliance Issues

Page 17 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

The extremely late issuance of OMB’s Final Report for fiscal year 2000

could have had an impact on the report’s usefulness for its original

purposes and intent. If OMB’s Final Report shows that a sequestration is

required, a presidential order must be issued the same day the OMB report

is issued. DCA envisions this to be 15 days after the end of a session of

Congress—usually relatively close to the beginning of the fiscal year.

However, because OMB’s final report for fiscal year 2000 was issued in

January 2000, if the budgetary effects of enacted legislation had

necessitated a sequester for fiscal year 2000, the sequestration would have

begun in late January 2000—more than one quarter into the fiscal year. This

would have left only 8 months remaining in the fiscal year for agencies to

implement the sequester, thus magnifying the effect of any sequestration on

agencies that are already hard pressed to deal with static appropriation

levels.

OMB Issued Scoring

Reports Late

Sections 251 and 252 of DCA require OMB to issue scorekeeping reports for

all enacted appropriation and PAYGO legislation within 7 working days of

enactment. OMB issued 4 discretionary scorekeeping reports (covering 11

pieces of enacted legislation)7 and 13 PAYGO reports. Of these 17 reports,

16 were issued later than the time required by law. On average, the fiscal

year 2000 discretionary spending reports were issued 39 working days late

and the PAYGO reports were issued 7 working days late. The one report

issued on time was a PAYGO report.

Compared to previous fiscal years, a higher percentage of fiscal year 2000

reports was issued late. Table 4 shows the percentage of reports issued late

for the last 5 years. The percentage of late reports has more than doubled

since 1996 and increased by more than 10 percent from fiscal year 1999

through fiscal year 2000.

Table 4: Percentage of OMB Scoring Reports Issued Late

7

This includes two fiscal year 1999 supplemental appropriations acts, which contained

spending for fiscal year 2000.

Fiscal year 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Percent of reports issued late 40 71.3 52.5 82.8 94
Appendix II

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OMB, using the same reasoning it did to explain its late final sequestration

report, cited the volume of legislation enacted late in the year as causing

the scorekeeping reports to be due during “budget crunch” season. During

this time, producing the President’s budget is OMB’s highest priority.
Page 19 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Appendix III

Implementation Issues ApendxiI

In addition to the compliance issue, we found several implementation

issues on which OMB and CBO differed: (1) the scoring treatment of

H.R. 3425, the Miscellaneous Appropriations Act, 2000, (2) other

appropriations scoring, (3) PAYGO scoring, and (4) discretionary spending

cap adjustments.

Scoring of H.R. 3425,

the Miscellaneous

Appropriations Act,

2000

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000, Public Law 106-113, November

29, 1999, (H.R. 3194) incorporated by reference several unenacted bills,

including five appropriations bills for the fiscal year ending September 30,

2000. As introduced, H.R. 3194 provided fiscal year 2000 appropriations for

the District of Columbia, but it was broadened in conference to incorporate

by reference, in paragraphs 1000(a)(1)-(4), four other regular

appropriations bills: H.R. 3421, Departments of Commerce, Justice, and

State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2000; H.R.

3422, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs

Appropriations Act, 2000; H.R. 3423, Department of the Interior and

Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2000; and H.R. 3424, Departments of

Labor, Health, and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies

Appropriations Act, 2000.

In addition, paragraph 1000(a)(5) incorporated by reference H.R. 3425, the

Miscellaneous Appropriations Act, 2000, which dealt with miscellaneous

appropriations and included many of the offsets agreed to by the

administration and the congressional leadership in order to avoid a

sequestration, such as shifting military and some civilian pay dates from

fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2001, a $3.8 billion transfer from the Federal

Reserve Board to the Treasury, and a governmentwide rescission of 0.38

percent of discretionary budget authority.

Finally, paragraphs 1000(a)(6)-(9) incorporated by reference unenacted

bills dealing primarily with mandatory spending, such as amendments to

Medicare, authorizations for the State Department, the Milk Marketing

Orders program, and the Intellectual Property and Communications

Omnibus Reform Act.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

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Substantial Scoring

Differences Resulted from

Different OMB and CBO

Applications of the Directed

Scoring Provision

Subsection 1001(a) of Public Law 106-113 provided for directed scoring of

several acts. It states the following.

PAYGO Adjustments. (a) Notwithstanding Rule 3 of the Budget Scorekeeping Guidelines

. . ., legislation enacted. . . by reference in the paragraphs after paragraph 4 of subsection

1000(a) that would have been estimated by the Office of Management and Budget as

changing direct spending or receipts under section 252 of the Balanced Budget and

Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 were it included in an Act other than an

appropriations Act shall be treated as direct spending or receipts legislation as appropriate,

under section 252 of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, but

shall be subject to subsection (b).1

Rule 3 directs that “substantive changes to or restrictions on entitlement

law or other mandatory spending law in appropriations laws will be scored

against the Appropriations Committee ...”, i.e., as discretionary spending.

Section 1001(a) suspends Rule 3 and directs OMB to score as PAYGO any

mandatory spending or receipts provisions in the bills referred to in

paragraphs 1000(a)(5)-(9), notwithstanding their inclusion in an

appropriation act. Based on discussions with OMB and CBO staff, it

appears that the directed scoring provision was intended to avoid a

sequestration by suspending Rule 3 for the acts incorporated by paragraphs

1000(a)(6)-(9), leaving the substantial savings generated by paragraph

1000(a)(5), totaling $9.5 billion in outlays according to OMB, to offset fiscal

year 2000 discretionary spending. Both staffs attributed the inclusion of

paragraph 1000(a)(5) (i.e., H.R. 3425) under the directed scorekeeping

provision to a drafting error.2

In scoring H.R. 3425, CBO interpreted the scoring direction of section

1001(a) as requiring that all of H.R. 3425’s provisions be scored as PAYGO,

1

Subsection (b) directs OMB to exclude the direct spending and receipts amounts from its

PAYGO scorecard totals.

2

Although unable to provide documentation, both OMB and CBO officials and at least one

press report characterized as a drafting error the application of the directed scoring

provision of section 1001(a) to paragraph 1000(a)(5). We are not aware of any

contemporaneous official documentation of such a drafting error. However, section 5103,

H.R. 3908, 106th Congress, introduced on March 14, 2000, would amend section 1001 of

Public Law 106-113 to provide that the directed scoring applies to paragraphs after

paragraph 5 and to clarify that paragraph 5 was intended to be scored as discretionary

spending. The House passed this bill on March 30, 2000.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

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resulting in $7.3 billion of PAYGO savings.3 On the other hand, OMB, in an

attempt to reflect the budget agreement that the administration had

negotiated with congressional leadership, reported that it scored any

provision reported out of an appropriation committee as discretionary and

scored other provisions as PAYGO. OMB’s scoring of H.R. 3425 reduced

discretionary outlays by $9.5 billion and increased PAYGO spending by

$35 million for fiscal year 2000.

Most of the scoring difference between OMB and CBO for H.R. 3425 can be

attributed to the difference in scoring of a $3.8 billion transfer from the

Federal Reserve Board. CBO scored the Federal Reserve Board transfer as

PAYGO while OMB scored the transfer—clearly a receipts provision—as

discretionary. While this may be consistent with OMB’s understanding of

the budget agreement that was negotiated, it is inconsistent with the

scoring directions in section 1001(a) to score direct spending or receipts as

PAYGO legislation.

CBO’s Final Report for fiscal year 2000 stated that a 4 percent sequestration

(across-the-board reduction) in the Overall Discretionary category would

be required. CBO estimated that discretionary spending in all categories

combined would exceed the outlay caps by $16.6 billion. CBO noted

however, that these amounts did not include the funding and offsets

provided in H.R. 3425. The report says that without the directed scoring in

section 1001(a), CBO would have scored some of H.R. 3425 as

discretionary (or as offsets to discretionary spending) resulting in $4 billion

less in discretionary outlays for fiscal year 2000 and that the required

sequestration would have been 3 percent. Also, a CBO official stated that

absent the directed scoring provision, CBO would have scored all of

H.R. 3425 except for the receipts provisions as discretionary spending.

However, no sequester was required because OMB scored the effects of

most of the provisions in H.R. 3425 as offsets to discretionary spending and

differed with CBO on other scoring as discussed later in this report.

Both OMB and CBO provided PAYGO estimates for provisions in Public

Law 106-113 in their individual scorekeeping reports but, as directed by

subsection 1001(b) of Public Law 106-113, did not include the estimates in

3

The Miscellaneous Appropriations Act, 2000 (paragraph 5) contained appropriations as

well as direct spending provisions. Since Rule 3 deals solely with direct spending programs

contained in appropriations acts, disregarding it as directed by section 1001(a) could be

interpreted as having no effect on scoring the appropriations provisions in paragraph 5 as

discretionary. However, this was not CBO’s interpretation.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 22 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

their final PAYGO totals. Subsection 1001(c) directed OMB to reset the

PAYGO balances to zero on January 3, 2000, and CBO used that as its

starting point for fiscal year 2001 as well.

OMB and CBO Scoring

Differences for H.R. 3425

The different OMB and CBO treatments of the provisions in H.R. 3425

(i.e., PAYGO vs. discretionary) make it somewhat difficult to compare their

scoring estimates. For fiscal year 2000, for the provisions it scored as

discretionary, OMB estimated net savings of $6.8 billion in budget authority

and $9.5 billion in outlays. The total fiscal year 2000 cost of the provisions

OMB scored as PAYGO (international debt relief, survivor benefits, and

trade adjustment assistance) is $35 million. CBO’s PAYGO estimate of

H.R. 3425 shows net outlay savings of $7.3 billion in fiscal year 2000.

Despite the difficulty in comparing discretionary and direct spending

estimates, there are several provisions for which the differences between

the CBO and OMB fiscal year 2000 estimates are clearly significant. The

largest of those differences are described below.

Governmentwide Rescission. Section 301 of H.R. 3425 rescinded

0.38 percent of fiscal year 2000 discretionary budget authority. CBO and

OMB estimated budget authority savings similarly at $2.2 billion and

$2.4 billion respectively. However, their estimates of the effects on fiscal

year 2000 outlays differed significantly. OMB estimated discretionary

outlay savings of $1.4 billion, while CBO estimated PAYGO savings of only

$814 million. Because OMB and CBO differed in their interpretation of the

directed scorekeeping (discretionary vs. PAYGO), CBO scored PAYGO

savings and OMB did not. The CBO PAYGO scoring report on H.R. 3425

showed outlay savings of $2.2 billion accruing over 10 years. The OMB

discretionary scoring report showed effects of the rescission for fiscal year

2000 only.

National Directory of New Hires. Section 303 of H.R. 3425 gives the

Department of Education access to the Department of Health and Human

Services’ database on new hires to help collect defaulted student loans.

OMB estimated much higher outlay savings resulting from this access than

did CBO. OMB estimated this provision would reduce budget authority by

$880 million and outlays by $879 million in fiscal year 2000. In contrast, in

its PAYGO report, CBO assumed a much smaller impact from the

legislation, estimating savings of only $95 million in fiscal year 2000 and

cumulative savings of $200 million over 10 years. CBO estimates only a
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 23 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

small proportion of total defaulted loans will be affected by use of this

database.

Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Agriculture. Title I of

H.R. 3425 provides contingent emergency appropriations for a variety of

agricultural programs. CBO estimated a cost of $456 million for fiscal year

2000. Since these were contingent emergency appropriations that had not

yet been released by the President, in keeping with its then-current scoring

practice, the OMB scoring report did not show a cost estimate for Title I.

Other Fiscal Year 2000

Discretionary Scoring

Differences

Four appropriations acts—Military Construction (Public Law 106-52),

Legislative Branch (Public Law 106-57), Treasury and General Government

(Public Law 106-58), and Energy and Water Development (Public Law

106-60)—were enacted prior to the start of fiscal year 2000. Another four

acts—Transportation and Related Agencies (Public Law 106-69), Veterans

Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, and Independent Agencies

(Public Law 106-74), Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug

Administration, and Related Agencies (Public Law 106-78), and Department

of Defense (Public Law 106-79)—were enacted after the start of the fiscal

year. The five remaining regular appropriations acts were combined into

the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 (Public Law 106-113).4

Different Estimates of

Fiscal Year 2000

Appropriations and

Spending Caps

The CBO and OMB final sequestration reports differed on the need for

sequestration in fiscal year 2000. As shown in table 5, CBO estimated that

budget authority and outlays for the Overall Discretionary category and

outlays for the Highway and Mass Transit categories exceeded the

spending caps. OMB estimated budget authority in all categories and

outlays in all categories except the Violent Crime Reduction category as

below or meeting the caps.5 Since OMB’s estimates and spending caps are

controlling for purposes of sequestration, a sequester was not triggered.

4

As discussed earlier, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 also incorporated by

reference five other bills. Both CBO and OMB treated four of the bills as direct spending.

One bill (H.R. 3425, the Miscellaneous Appropriations Act) was treated as direct spending

by CBO, while OMB treated part of the bill as discretionary spending and part as direct

spending. (See previous section on H.R. 3425 in this appendix for more information.)

5

Although OMB estimated outlays in the Violent Crime Reduction category as exceeding the

cap, it will make use of the special outlay allowance provided under section 251(b)(2) to

adjust the limit to cover the breach.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

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The difference between the CBO and OMB estimates is accounted for by

many scorekeeping differences; the largest of these are detailed in the

following discussion.

Table 5: CBO and OMB Estimates of Fiscal Year 2000 Appropriations Compared to

Adjusted Caps

Note: Highway and Mass Transit Categories were created by TEA-21 and include outlay caps only.

Scoring Differences Although there were many scorekeeping differences between OMB and

CBO, most of the differences were relatively small. We identified 456

scoring differences between CBO and OMB in either budget authority or

outlays. Of the 456 differences, nearly 75 percent were less than $100

Dollars in millions

OMB CBO

Budget

authority Outlays

Budget

authority Outlays

Overall Discretionary

Enacted appropriations $ 562,045 $ 561,407 $ 570,440 $ 577,664

End-of-session limits 563,602 564,870 563,714 562,429

Difference -1,558 -3,463 6,726 15,235

Violent Crime Reduction

Enacted appropriations 4,500 6,344 4,500 5,548

End-of-session limits 4,500 6,344 4,500 5,554

Difference 0 0 0 -6

Highway

Enacted appropriations 24,574 25,344

End-of-session limits 24,574 24,574

Difference 0 770

Mass Transit

Enacted appropriations 4,117 4,685

End-of-session limits 4,117 4,117

Difference 0 568

Total for All Spending Categories

Total enacted appropriations $ 566,545 $ 596,442 $ 574,940 $ 613,241

End-of-session limits 568,102 599,905 568,214 596,674

Difference -1,558 -3,463 6,726 16,567
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

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million, and less than 7 percent of the differences were greater than $500

million.

Of the 31 differences greater than $500 million, 19 were due to longstanding differences in the way OMB and CBO treat contingent

emergencies. CBO scores contingent emergency appropriations when the

Congress enacts them. OMB traditionally has waited to score contingent

emergency appropriations until the President has designated them as

emergency requirements and the funds have been released.6 Since the

scorekeeping differences due to the treatment of contingent emergencies

reflect differences in timing, we have not included them in the discussion

below. The provisions with the remaining 12 largest differences in budget

authority, outlays, or both are shown in table 6.

6

In OMB’s Preview Report, issued February 7, 2000, OMB reported that it plans to change its

scoring of budget authority for contingent emergency appropriations to be consistent with

congressional scoring practice. See discussion on Changes in OMB’s Budget Scoring in

appendix I.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 26 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Table 6: Provisions with More than $500 Million Difference Between OMB and CBO Estimatesa

a

Differences due to the treatment of contingent emergencies are not included.

b

No budgetary impact in 1999.

Notes: Negative numbers indicate provisions where CBO estimates were higher than OMB. Positive

numbers indicate provisions where CBO estimates were lower than OMB.

Sources: OMB and CBO.

For these provisions, the differences between the OMB and CBO estimates

can be grouped into the following categories:

• DCA categorization difference: The Transportation Equity Act of the

21st Century (TEA-21) amended the BEA to create separate outlay caps

for highway and mass transit spending. However, the Highway and Mass

Transit spending categories do not have budget authority limits. OMB

and CBO used different treatments of the budget authority in the Mass

Dollars in millions

Difference between OMB and CBO estimates

(OMB-CBO)

Fiscal year 1999 Fiscal year 2000

Act Account

Budget

authority Outlays

Budget

authority Outlays

Transportation and Related Agencies

Appropriations Act, 2000

Transit Budget Authority b b $ -1,159 $ 0

Transportation and Related Agencies

Appropriations Act, 2000

Highway and Transit Category

Outlays

b b 0 -1,314

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 State and Local Law

Enforcement Assistance,

Department of Justice

b b 0 564

Department of Defense Appropriations

Act, FY2000

Spectrum Auction Receipts b b -2,600 -2,600

Department of Defense Appropriations

Act, FY2000

Operations and Maintenance,

Navy

b b 0 -1,285

Department of Defense Appropriations

Act, FY2000

Operations and Maintenance,

Air Force

b b 0 -1,011

Department of Defense Appropriations

Act, FY2000

Shipbuilding and Conversion,

Navy

b b 0 -628

Department of Defense Appropriations

Act, FY2000

Aircraft Procurement, Air Force b b 0 -517

Department of Defense Appropriations

Act, FY2000

Working Capital Fund b b 0 -783

Emergency Supplemental Appropriations

Act, FY1999

Overseas Contingency

Operations Transfer Fund

0 1,231 0 1,017
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 27 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Transit category in their final sequestration reports. CBO did not include

approximately $1.2 billion in budget authority for mass transit programs

in its estimates of discretionary budget authority contained in its report.

However, CBO does report budget authority for mass transit programs

when it scores appropriation bills in order to keep an accurate record of

the amount of budget authority provided for these programs.7 In its

report, OMB categorized the Mass Transit budget authority as

mandatory spending to ensure that its discretionary totals did not

overstate budget authority. Although OMB and CBO treated the Mass

Transit budget authority differently for their scoring reports, neither

Final Report scored it against the discretionary budget authority

spending caps.

• Difference in the Overall Discretionary spending category due to

differences in estimates of Highway and Mass Transit spending:

CBO estimated that outlays in the Highway and Mass Transit categories

will exceed the spending caps by $1.3 billion. Pursuant to DCA, CBO

scores outlays exceeding the caps against the Overall Discretionary

category. CBO’s fiscal year 2000 Final Report shows outlays in the

Highway category exceeding the cap by $770 million and outlays in the

Mass Transit category exceeding the cap by $568 million. OMB

estimated that Highway and Mass Transit outlays would not exceed the

caps, and thus, there is no deduction from the Overall Discretionary

category. According to an OMB official, the $770 million difference in

the Highway category is attributable to different assumptions of the

spendout rates for obligated and unobligated balances in the Federal

Aid to Highways account. The official thought that different spendout

rate assumptions in the Discretionary Grants account could also explain

the $568 million difference in the Mass Transit category.

• Different outlay rate estimates: Differences in the State and Local

Law Enforcement Assistance account result from OMB assuming $564

million more in outlays in fiscal year 2000 from previously available

budget authority than CBO assumed. Similarly, the differences in the

OMB and CBO estimates for Navy operations and maintenance, Air

Force operations and maintenance, Navy shipbuilding and conversion,

Air Force aircraft procurement, and the Working Capital Fund are due to

differences in estimates of outlay rates. In these five accounts, OMB

assumes slower rates for fiscal year 2000 than does CBO. In the case of

7

CBO’s scoring report for the Department of Transportation and Related Agencies shows

two budget authority totals—one including the $1.2 billion estimate for Mass Transit and

one total excluding the estimate.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 28 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

the Overseas Contingency Operations Transfer Account, CBO assumes a

slower spendout rate than does OMB in fiscal year 1999 (43 percent

versus 74 percent) and a faster rate in fiscal year 2000 (46 percent versus

20 percent).

• Different rate of receipts estimates: For Spectrum Auction Receipts,

OMB estimates that legislation to speed the collection of spectrum

auction proceeds will net $2.6 billion in accelerated receipts, while CBO

assumes that the legislative changes will not result in increased receipts

in fiscal year 2000.

PAYGO Scoring Issues In its Final Report, CBO reported that PAYGO legislation enacted through

the end of the first session of the 106th Congress resulted in a net spending

increase in fiscal year 1999 of $58 million and produced net savings of

$3,179 million for fiscal year 2000. Based on these estimates, CBO

concluded that no sequestration of mandatory spending for fiscal year 2000

was required. OMB, in its Final Report, estimated that the same legislation

produced a net increase of $58 million for 1999 and a net savings for 2000 of

$3,072 million.8 OMB also concluded that, based on these estimates, no

PAYGO sequester was required.

As directed by section 1001(b) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act,

2000 (Public Law 106-113), the final PAYGO scorecard numbers of both

CBO and OMB did not include any estimates of changes in direct spending

or receipts that result from the enactment of that legislation. Section

1001(c) of that act further directs OMB to remove from its scorecard any

PAYGO balances on January 3, 2000. OMB’s Preview Report issued on

February 7, 2000, showed zero PAYGO balances for all years. According to

CBO estimates, sections 1001(b) and (c) of Public Law 106-113 eliminated

over $35 billion in costs from the PAYGO scorecard for fiscal years 2001

through 2004, primarily due to the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP

Balanced Budget Refinement Act of 1999 and the Ticket to Work and Work

Incentives Improvement Act of 1999.

During the first session of the 106th Congress, only 13 pieces of PAYGO

legislation with estimated budgetary impact greater than $500,000 were

8

As required by the DCA, the fiscal year 1999 total reflects only that legislation added to the

scorecard after the 1999 Final Report was issued. Under DCA, the fiscal year 1999 and 2000

numbers were combined to determine whether sequestration was required.
Appendix III

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enacted.9 We analyzed those scorekeeping reports for which OMB and CBO

estimates differed by $500 million or more either in any single year or over

the 5-year period 2000 through 2004. Only three pieces of legislation met

this criterion: (1) the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000, Public Law

106-113, (2) the Veterans Millenium Health Care and Benefits Act, Public

Law 106-117, and (3) the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement

Act of 1999, Public Law 106-170. They are discussed below.

Consolidated

Appropriations Act, 2000

As discussed earlier, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000, Public

Law 106-113, incorporated five separate bills on the remaining regular

appropriations acts for fiscal year 2000 into a single measure, H.R. 3194. In

addition to the regular appropriations acts, the consolidated act included

five other separate measures including (1) miscellaneous appropriations

(H.R. 3425), (2) amendments to Medicare and related programs (H.R. 3426),

(3) authorizations for the State Department (H.R. 3427), (4) Federal Milk

Marketing Orders program, (H.R. 3428), and (5) the Intellectual Property

and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999 (S. 1948). Both OMB

and CBO prepared PAYGO scorekeeping reports on this legislation, but as

directed by section 1001(b), both excluded the PAYGO amounts from the

PAYGO scorecard totals.

As shown in table 7, there were significant differences between OMB and

CBO scoring over the 5-year cost of the legislation. Although OMB and CBO

differed by only about $900 million over the 5-year estimate, the estimates

in the years 2000 and 2001 differed by $8.1 billion and $6.7 billion

respectively.

9

OMB announced in its Preview Report for fiscal year 2000 that it was no longer issuing

PAYGO reports on legislation where OMB and CBO estimate zero or negligible budget

impact, i.e., less than $500,000.
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Table 7: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for Consolidated

Appropriations Act

The major differences stemmed from two factors: scoring of miscellaneous

appropriations in H.R. 3425 and Medicare related changes in H.R. 3426 that

were incorporated into this legislation by reference. Most ($7.3 billion) of

the scoring difference is the result of H.R. 3425 as discussed in the previous

section.

H.R. 3426, the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Balanced Budget

Refinement Act of 1999, mitigated the impact of some Medicare provisions

in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 on health care providers and included a

number of changes to Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance

Program. Differences in OMB and CBO scoring of this legislation total

almost $1 billion over the 5-year period 2000 through 2004. As shown in

table 8, the annual differences ranged from $300 million to $700 million per

year.

Table 8: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for Medicare, Medicaid, and

SCHIP

Most of this difference is related to a Medicare provision on

implementation of a new prospective payment system for hospital

outpatient services. CBO scored the provision while OMB believes that the

language merely clarifies congressional intent in previous law and

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total

OMB $ 1,552 $ 5,504 $ 4,581 $ 2,268 $ 1,288 $ 15,193

CBO -6,563 12,244 3,916 2,786 1,943 14,326

Difference

(OMB-CBO)

$ 8,115 $ -6,740 $ 665 $ -518 $ -655 $ 867

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total

OMB $ 1,500 $ 5,500 $ 4,600 $ 2,200 $ 1,300 $ 15,100

CBO 1,161 5,800 4,200 2,900 2,000 16,061

Difference

(OMB-CBO)

$ 339 $ -300 $ 400 $ -700 $ -700 $ -961
Appendix III

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therefore does not score any costs for it. Had OMB scored its estimate for

congressional intent, its estimate for the cost of the legislation would have

been about $4.9 billion higher over the 5-year period. This difference is

partially offset by lower CBO costing of other health entitlement provisions

resulting from the use of different baselines and estimating models.

Veterans Millennium Health

Care and Benefits Act

The Veterans Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act, Public Law 106-117,

expanded several veterans health care benefits; revised and extended

veterans programs for housing, education, and compensation benefits;

authorized new medical facility projects and leases; and provided buyout

authority for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employees as well as

other miscellaneous provisions.

CBO estimated that the provisions in the act would cost about $1,179

million over the 5-year period 2000–2004, whereas OMB scored the

legislation to cost $96 million over the same period—a difference of $1,083

million. Table 9 shows the annual differences between OMB and CBO

scoring for this legislation.

Table 9: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for Veterans Millennium

Health Care and Benefits Act

The principal difference between OMB and CBO, amounting to $1,195

million over the 5-year period, related to the scoring of the VA costs for

extended nursing home care for veterans who are 70 percent or more

service-connected disabled. Absent this provision, the scoring differences

between OMB and CBO were only $112 million over the period. The

particular provision of law requiring nursing home care was inserted at the

House and Senate conference on the bill. This new section, section 101(a)

of the act, amended existing legislation by adding a new section “Required

nursing home care,” which provided that “The Secretary shall provide

nursing home care which the Secretary determines is needed (1) to any

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total

OMB $ 10 $ 12 $ 28 $ 15 $ 31 $ 96

CBO -4 289 343 414 137 1,179

Difference

(OMB-CBO)

$ 14 $ -277 $ -315 $ -399 $ -106 $ -1,083
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 32 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

veteran in need of such care for a service-connected disability, and (2) to

any veteran who is in need of such care and who has a service-connected

disability rated at 70 percent or more.” Section 101(c) added another

section, “Extended care services,” which provided that “The Secretary

(subject to 1710(a)(4) of this title and subsection (c) of this section) shall

operate and maintain a program to provide extended care services to

eligible veterans in accordance with this section.” The difference between

the two sections and the CBO and OMB scoring stems from the reference

to 1710(a)(4) in the extended care services section which makes programs

subject to annual appropriations. The new section on nursing home care

did not contain such a reference. OMB and CBO interpreted this omission

differently.

CBO scored the nursing home provision as direct spending authority. CBO

stated that there is some doubt as to whether the Congress intended this

since all other components of veterans medical care are subject to

appropriation. OMB did not score the nursing home provision as having

additional cost because it believed that the requirement merely directed VA

to give a higher priority for nursing home care to these veterans. According

to OMB, VA’s general counsel expressed the opinion that the nursing home

care costs are to be funded from VA’s medical care account which is subject

to annual appropriations.

Ticket to Work and Work

Incentives Improvement Act

of 1999

The Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999, Public

Law 106-170, among other things altered cash and health care benefits for

people with disabilities; tightened restrictions on payment of Social

Security benefits to prisoners; gave certain clergy members another

opportunity to enroll in the Social Security system; and amended existing

tax laws and extended numerous tax provisions that have recently expired

or are about to expire.

As shown in table 10, OMB scored the 5-year cost of this act to be $17.9

billion, or $2.4 billion higher than CBO’s estimate of $15.5 billion.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 33 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Table 10: Comparison of OMB and CBO PAYGO Scoring for Ticket to Work and Work

Incentives Improvement Act of 1999

The most significant differences between OMB and CBO scoring of this act

related to the estimates for the tax extension provisions. OMB uses

estimates prepared by the Department of the Treasury while CBO uses

estimates prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation. Neither OMB nor

CBO changes the numbers provided by the respective organizations. For

this act, the 5-year estimate for revenue losses used by OMB was $2.5

billion greater than that used by CBO. The primary difference in the

estimates for tax extensions was identified as the result of different

baselines and estimation models related to the research and

experimentation tax credit and Subpart F for active financing income.

Specifically, the Joint Committee on Taxation uses a model that assumes

corporations will take more time initially to use the tax incentives. Thus,

CBO’s estimates would show revenue losses lower than OMB’s in the 5-year

window. However, over a longer period, such as over 10 years, the

estimates would become similar.

Cap Adjustments Section 251(b) of DCA requires that the discretionary spending limits be

adjusted to account for (1) changes in concepts and definitions,

(2) emergency appropriations, (3) an allowance for the International

Monetary Fund, (4) international arrearages, (5) earned income tax credit

compliance initiative, and (6) spending for continuing disability reviews by

the Social Security Administration. While both CBO and OMB are required

to calculate how much the spending limits should be adjusted, OMB’s

adjustments control for the purposes of budget enforcement, such as

determining whether enacted appropriations fall within the spending

limits, whether a sequestration is required, and, if so, how much. CBO’s cap

adjustment estimates are advisory. Consequently, when CBO adjusts the

discretionary spending caps in each of its sequestration reports, it first

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total

OMB $ -80 $ 4,874 $ 7,550 $ 2,933 $ 2,628$ 17,905

CBO -97 2,899 8,089 2,404 2,210 15,505

Difference

(OMB-CBO)

$ 17 $ 1,975 $ -539 $ 529 $ 418 $ 2,400
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 34 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

adopts OMB’s figures from the previous sequestration report.10 CBO then

adjusts the OMB figures for its estimates for enacted legislation or other

activity since the previous sequestration report.

In its Final Report for fiscal year 2000, CBO adjusted the spending caps for

the Overall Discretionary category, but no adjustments were made for any

other spending category. OMB adjusted both the Overall Discretionary

category spending caps and the Violent Crime Reduction cap. Overall, in

their final sequestration reports, CBO’s estimates of the 2000 caps are $112

million higher than OMB’s for budget authority and $3,231 million lower for

outlays. Table 11 shows the spending cap adjustments made by OMB and

CBO in the final sequestration reports.

10In its sequestration reports, CBO shows its own estimates of the discretionary spending

caps from the previous sequestration report and shows the difference between those

estimates and OMB’s estimates as an adjustment.
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 35 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Table 11: Adjustments to the Discretionary Spending Caps in the Final Sequestration Reports

a

The cap increase adjustment in the Overall Discretionary Spending category refers to a provision in

Public Law 106-113 that raised the budget authority cap for fiscal year 2000 by 0.2 percent.

Note: Although, as shown above, the total of the differences between CBO and OMB adjustments in

the Overall Discretionary Spending category add to $111 million, OMB’s final sequestration report

shows the total difference to be $112 million. This difference could be due to rounding. The OMB

number has been used elsewhere in this report.

Sources: CBO and OMB.

As the table shows, almost all of the increase in the fiscal year 2000

discretionary budget authority and outlay caps is due to adjustments for

emergency appropriations. Nearly all of the difference in the adjustments

to budget authority is due to the different treatments of H.R. 3425. OMB’s

budget authority adjustment for emergency spending includes a reduction

of $101 million pursuant to the provision in H.R. 3425 which rescinds 0.38

percent of the discretionary budget authority provided for fiscal year 2000.

CBO’s adjustment does not include any such reduction since it scored

H.R. 3425 as direct spending. Of the nearly $2.5 billion difference in the

adjustments for outlays from emergency spending, OMB explained that

$735 million was due to OMB having higher estimates of fiscal year 2000

Dollars in millions

Fiscal year 2000

Budget authority Outlays

OMB CBO Difference OMB CBO Difference

Violent Crime Reduction Category

Special Outlay Allowance 0 0 0 $ 790 0 $ 790

Overall Discretionary Spending Category

Emergency appropriations enacted and

released since August update report

$ 29,772 $ 29,881 $ -109 $ 22,777 $ 20,331 $ 2,446

Continuing disability reviews 405 405 0 373 353 20

Allowance for international arrearages 426 428 -2 0 13 -13

EITC compliance initiatives 144 144 0 144 146 -2

Adoption assistance 20 20 0 2 12 -10

Cap increasea 1,065 1,065 0 0 0 0

Adjustments for the Overall Discretionary

Spending Category

$ 31,832 $ 31,943 $ -111 $ 23,296 $ 20,855 $ 2,441

Total Adjustments to Discretionary

Spending $ 31,832 $ 31,943 $ -111 $ 24,086 $ 20,855 $ 3,231
Appendix III

Implementation Issues

Page 36 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

outlays for two items.11 OMB offered no explanation for the remaining

difference in emergency appropriations outlay estimates.

Also, there is a $790 million difference in estimates of fiscal year 2000

outlays in the Violent Crime Reduction category. OMB estimates spending

in that category to be within the budget authority limit but exceeding the

outlay limit by $790 million. OMB used the special outlay allowance

provided under section 251(b)(2) of DCA to cover the breach. This allows

for an adjustment of the outlay cap when outlays are estimated to exceed

the discretionary spending limit as long as new budget authority does not

exceed its limit within the same spending category. The adjustment may

not exceed 0.5 percent of the total adjustment for discretionary spending

limits for outlays.

11The two items were Operations and Maintenance for the Department of Defense and the

Department of Health and Human Services’ Head Start program.
Page 37 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Appendix IV

Emergency Spending ApendixIV

In accordance with the Deficit Control Act, the Congress and the President

may designate appropriations as “emergency spending” and as such, those

appropriations are in effect exempt from the discretionary spending caps.

In practice, when spending is designated as an emergency, the

discretionary caps are increased by the amount of the associated budget

authority and outlays. As was true for fiscal year 1999, the amount

designated as emergency spending for fiscal year 2000 is significantly

higher than in most past years, the proportion of emergency spending

offset was much lower than in the past, and some new programs were

designated as emergencies in fiscal years 1999 and 2000.

In the 10 years since the enactment of the Budget Enforcement Act in 1990,

fiscal year 2000’s $30.8 billion emergency budget authority1 has been

surpassed only twice: fiscal year 1999’s $34.4 billion and fiscal year 1991’s

$45.8 billion, which included funding for Operation Desert Storm. (See

table 12.) The $21.8 billion appropriated in fiscal year 2000 for nondefenserelated items is the largest amount of emergency appropriations for

nondefense purposes since BEA was enacted. Only 2 other fiscal years had

more than $10 billion in nondefense emergency budget authority—1994,

which included funding associated with the Northridge earthquake, and

1999.

Table 12: Emergency Budget Authority, Fiscal Years 1991-2000

Note: Data for fiscal years 1991 through 1999 are current as of June 8, 1999, and data for fiscal year

2000 are current as of December 2, 1999.

Source: CBO.

1

The amount of emergency budget authority for fiscal year 2000 may increase if additional

emergency spending designations are made during the year. After regular appropriations

acts for a given fiscal year are enacted, additional appropriations are commonly made in

supplemental spending acts.

Dollars in millions

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

Defense $ 44,387 $ 7,527 $ 642 $ 1,509 $ 2,529 $ 982 $ 2,077 $ 2,861 $ 16,845 $ 9,038

Nondefense 1,459 8,641 5,387 12,346 5,406 4,069 7,459 3,042 17,511 21,802

Total $ 45,846 $ 16,168 $ 6,029 $ 13,855 $ 7,935 $ 5,051 $ 9,536 $ 5,903 $ 34,356 $ 30,840
Appendix IV

Emergency Spending

Page 38 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Most of the nearly $31 billion in emergency budget authority enacted for

fiscal year 2000 was not offset with reductions in other discretionary

spending. While emergency spending is effectively exempt from the

spending caps, between 1994 and 1997 the Congress typically offset some

of the supplemental emergency appropriations with cuts in other

programs. For example, the 1998 Supplemental Appropriations and

Rescissions Act (Public Law 105-174) enacted on May 1, 1998, included $5.4

billion in emergency appropriations and $2.6 billion in reductions in other

programs. In contrast, the fiscal year 1999 Emergency Supplemental

Appropriations Act (Public Law 106-31) enacted on May 21, 1999, included

nearly $15 billion in emergency supplemental appropriations for fiscal

years 1999 and 2000. However, the law included only about $2.0 billion in

offsetting rescissions. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000, which

provided over $10 billion in emergency spending, included offsetting

reductions in outlays and increases in revenues totaling about $6 billion.2 It

should be noted, however, that $3.6 billion of the outlay reductions were

due to shifting pay dates for military and some civilian personnel so that

$3.6 billion in salary outlays will be charged to fiscal year 2001 instead of

fiscal year 2000. Also, approximately $3.8 billion in additional revenue is

due to the transfer of that amount from the Federal Reserve Board to the

Treasury during fiscal year 2000. CBO has reported that it expects an

offsetting reduction of the same amount in the Federal Reserve Board’s

fiscal year 2001 payments to the Treasury as the board restores its financial

balance to its desired level.3

The Deficit Control Act sets forth no criteria to use in determining what

constitutes emergency spending. It imposes only the following definition:

“any appropriations . . ., that the President designates as emergency

requirements and that the Congress so designates in statute.” Operation

Desert Storm and peacekeeping operations in Kosovo are examples of

defense-related emergency spending. Nondefense emergency spending

primarily occurs in response to natural disasters such as hurricanes and

earthquakes. However, as discussed in our compliance report for 1999,4

2

The estimates cited in this section are CBO estimates.

3

While CBO treated these provisions as mandatory (see section on H.R. 3425 in appendix III

for more information) for sequestration purposes, it reclassified many of the effects as

discretionary when recalculating the January 2000 baseline.

4

Budget Issues: Budget Enforcement Compliance Report (GAO/AIMD-99-100, April 1, 1999);

see also Budgeting for Emergencies: State Practices and Federal Implications (GAO/AIMD99-250, September 30, 1999).
Appendix IV

Emergency Spending

Page 39 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

emergency appropriations addressed broader purposes than in most prior

years, including for example, appropriations for operation and

maintenance of information systems and for the 2000 Census. As in fiscal

year 1999, a wide variety of programs have been designated as emergencies

in fiscal year 2000. Table 13 shows the CBO estimates for appropriations

that were designated as emergencies for fiscal year 2000.

Table 13: Emergency Spending, Fiscal Year 2000

Source: CBO.

Dollars in millions

Appropriations Act Program(s)

Budget authority for

fiscal year 2000

1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act Department of Defense: Military Personnel $ 1,838

1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act Department of Agriculture: Commodity Credit

Corporation Fund

35

1999 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act Denali Commission 8

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Commerce: 2000 Census 4,476

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Foreign Operations: Foreign Military Financing 1,375

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Foreign Operations: Economic Support 450

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of Health and Human Services: Refugee

and Entrant Assistance

427

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of Health and Human Services: Low

Income Home Energy Assistance

1,400

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of Health and Human Services: Children

and Families Services

1,700

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of Health and Human Services: General

Departmental Management

584

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of the Interior: Wildland Fire Management 90

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of the Interior: United Mine Workers of

America Combined Benefits Fund

68

Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2000 Department of Education: Student Financial Assistance 10

Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development,

and Independent Agencies

FEMA − Disaster Relief 2,480

Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug

Administration, and Related Agencies

Federal Crop Insurance 250

Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug

Administration, and Related Agencies

Emergency Assistance − Department of Agriculture 8,449

Department of Defense Operations and Maintenance 7,200

Total $ 30,840
Appendix IV

Emergency Spending

Page 40 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

The debate that began during the 105th Congress over what constitutes

emergency spending continued into the 106th Congress. Prior to enactment

of fiscal year 2000 regular appropriations, several proposals were

introduced to change the treatment of emergency spending.5 Those

proposals ranged from requiring committee reports to include justifications

for emergency spending provisions to including some emergency spending

within the spending caps. After enactment of the fiscal year 2000

appropriations, the Congress continued to propose changes to the

treatment of emergency spending. The budget resolution for fiscal year

2001 (H. Con. Res. 290), passed by the House and Senate on April 13, 2000,

included language requiring committee reports that propose emergency

spending to analyze whether the proposed expenditure or tax change

meets the following criteria:

• necessary, essential, or vital (not merely useful or beneficial);

• sudden, quickly coming into being, and not building up over time;

• an urgent, pressing, and compelling need requiring immediate action;

• unforeseen, unpredictable, and unanticipated; and

• not permanent, temporary in nature.6

In addition, the resolution introduced a point of order in the Senate against

designating nondefense spending as an emergency. The point of order may

be waived only with an affirmative vote of at least 60. There was a similar

point of order in the fiscal year 2000 budget resolution, however it was

raised only once, against relief funding for Hurricane Mitch in the May 2000

supplemental appropriations bill.

5

See, for example, Senate Resolution 5, S. 93, H.R. 853, and House Concurrent Resolution

290.

6

These criteria are similar to those proposed in the Budget Enforcement Act of 1999 (S. 93)

and those proposed by OMB in 1991.
Appendix IV

Emergency Spending

Page 41 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Additional information on issues related to emergency spending can be

found in the CBO report Emergency Spending Under the Budget

Enforcement Act, issued in December 1998, the update to that report,

issued in June 1999, the GAO reports Budgeting for Emergencies: State

Practices and Federal Implications7 and Emergency Criteria: How Five

States Budget for Uncertainty.

8

7

Budgeting For Emergencies: State Practices and Federal Implications (GAO/AIMD-99-250,

September 30, 1999).

8

Emergency Criteria: How Five States Budget for Uncertainty (GAO/AIMD-99-156R

Emergency Criteria).
Page 42 GAO/AIMD-00-174 Budget Enforcement Compliance Report

Appendix V

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxVi

GAO Contact Christine E. Bonham, (202) 512-9576

Acknowledgments In addition to the person named above, Trina V. Lewis, Robert M. Sexton,

Joseph G. Heisler, Melinda F. Bowman, Charles Roney, and Frank Maguire

made key contributions to this report.

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GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

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