House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, are probing the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Treasury Department over incomplete Federal spending data on the USAspending.gov website.
In a Jan. 22 letter addressed to OMB Director Shalanda Young and the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) Commissioner Timothy Gribben, the committee chairmen noted they are opening an investigation into the agencies after a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found nearly one-third of agencies did not report – or reported inconsistently – spending data to USAspending.gov.
The website USAspending.gov is the official source of Federal spending information to help both the government and the public track Federal funds, including Federal contracts, grants, and loans.
However, a November 2023 GAO report found that 49 agencies did not report data to USAspending.gov in fiscal year (FY) 2022 – 25 of which “accounted for more than $5 billion in net outlays.”
GAO said while not all agencies are required to report data to the website, neither OMB nor the Treasury Department have clear responsibility for determining which agencies need to report.
GAO called on Congress to help fix this problem, issuing a recommendation that it amend the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act). Specifically, GAO wants Congress to assign OMB, in coordination with Treasury, the responsibilities to periodically assess and determine which agencies must report data to USAspending.gov, and ensure they complete all reporting requirements.
“Until Congress assigns responsibility to Treasury and OMB to periodically assess and determine which agencies must report data to USAspending.gov and oversee the completeness of their reporting, the USAspending.gov data may lack some required spending information,” GAO said.
The chairmen wrote, “Given the shared role that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Treasury maintain for the policy implementation and management of USAspending.gov, the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Committee on Budget are concerned by the lack of progress in ensuring agencies provide accurate, complete, and timely reports under the law.”
To assist the committees in investigating the lack of proper agency reporting to USAspending.gov, Reps. Comer and Arrington requested a staff-level briefing with OMB and BFS no later than Feb. 9, 2024.
