Your fourth question asked whether states differentiate between authorization and appropriation legislation as the federal government does, and asks how the answer to that question affects state legislatures' programmatic oversight. The federal authorization process has no parallel in state government. State programs are created in legislation and the enabling legislation remains codified in statute, as is the federal practice, but state enabling legislation does not routinely authorize a maximum or specific level of program expenditure when the program is created or subsequently. That is true for all 50 states. The legislative appropriations process provides appropriations of state funds for agency use with the general understanding that the full amount of the appropriation is to be expended for the purposes stated.
Programmatic oversight occurs in a number of ways that differ among the states.
In 32 states, legislatures receive agency budget requests from the agencies before the executive budget in prepared. In hearings, legislators can question agency staff directly about their budget requests. Staff analyses can be used to raise questions about the use of previous appropriations as well as about requests for increases or changes in budgets. B. Legislators use budget hearings to question agency staff on existing programs and past budgets as well as budget requests. Governors' budget proposals have tended to present a growing amount of explanatory and performance data, which encourages legislative questions on program efficiency and effectiveness.