Tracking the Funds
Following Community Project Funding and Congressionally Directed Spending from appropriation, to agency, to recipient, to project completion.
On September 28, 2023, GAO issued several new updates to our Tracking the Funds series. As part of the FY 2022 and 2023 appropriations processes, Members of Congress could request provisions designating an amount of funds to a particular recipient—such as a local government or nonprofit organization—for a specific project. Member requests directed funds for specific projects that generally would otherwise have been left to agencies’ discretion. These provisions are called "Congressionally Directed Spending" in the U.S. Senate and "Community Project Funding" in the House of Representatives.
To help Congress oversee these funds, we issued the following new resources:
An interactive map and chart where you can track the funds by agency, location, state, and other options for FYs 2022 and 2023.
Future oversight is planned.
Summary of Funding Provisions
In FY22, the Consolidated Appropriations Act designated funds totaling $9.1 billion for almost 5,000 projects. Eighteen federal agencies are responsible for distributing funds to designated recipients and monitoring expenditure of those funds for projects funded in FY22. We issued reports at the end of FY22 describing each agency’s plans for funds distribution and monitoring.
Agencies have begun implementing the FY22 provisions, as we outline in our new report. As of the end of FY22, the 18 agencies:
made legal commitments to pay recipients—such as signing contracts or awarding grants—for about one third of the funds (or half of the projects), and
distributed about 2 percent of the funds (for about 6 percent of the projects).
In FY23, the designated funds totaled $15.3 billion for about 7,200 projects. Other than the addition of one new agency in FY23—the Office of National Drug Control Policy—the same 18 agencies received funding for these provisions in both years. Our report analyzing the makeup of the FY23 provisions also provides information on any changes agencies have made to their FY22 plans for distributing and monitoring funds.
What are the intended uses of these funds?
Federal spending is designated into broad purpose categories called Budget Functions, and the funding provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Acts cover a broad range of purposes. The top five purposes over both years are Community and Regional Development, Natural Resources and Environment, Transportation, National Defense, and Health.
Budget Functions of Funding Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 and 2023
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aThe category “Other” includes the General Government and Income Security budget functions, as well as provisions and funding spread across multiple functions.
Who are the designated recipients?
Across both years, Congress designated the most provisions to tribal, state, local, and territorial governments. In some cases, these entities may distribute the funds in the future to subrecipients, such as nonprofits, to implement the projects. In other cases, a federal agency was designated to directly undertake projects, such as dam-building or river-dredging, in communities.
Recipients of the Funding Provisions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022 and 2023
Recipient type
Funding for provisions
Number of provisions
Tribal/State/Local/Territorial Government
$11,339.5
5,891
Federal Government
$5,363.0
687
Other Nonprofit Organizations
$4,946.3
4,207
Higher Education Organizations
$2,743.9
1,411
For FY23, funds were designated for projects in 48 states, the District of Columbia, and 4 U.S. territories This is consistent with the locations for the FY22 provisions plus one additional state—Wyoming—for FY23. See our interactive map for how the FY22 funds are being implemented across the states and territories.
How long will the funds be available?
Congress generally gives budget authority to an agency for a specific period, referred to as “the period of availability.” Time-limited authority can be provided for one or multiple years, while some budget authority never expires.
For the FY23 provisions, 71 percent of the funds are available for agencies to obligate for a fixed period ranging from 1 year to 5 years. After the funds’ period of availability expires, agencies generally have 5 years to fully disburse the funds. The remaining 29 percent of funds are not time limited, so the funds will be available for obligation until they are spent. In some instances, the timeline that agencies set for recipients to spend funds may be shorter than what is specified in law.
For the FY22 funds, agencies legally committed (or obligated) 99.2 percent of funds for provisions designated with one-year funding before they expired. For provisions designating funds with periods of availability longer than one year, agencies generally recorded fewer obligations.
Explore the FY 2022 and 2023 Funds
Congress designated funding to 19 agencies across various locations, and for differing purposes over the last two years. Use our interactive map and chart to track the funding by agency, location, state, period of availability, and other options for FYs 2022 and 2023.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy is the only agency to receive these provisions in FY23 that did not receive such provisions in FY22. A report on ONDCP’s plans for distributing and monitoring the funds is listed below along with reports on the 18 agencies that received provisions in both FY22 and FY23. For updated information on the other 18 agencies’ processes for monitoring and distributing funds, please see our report analyzing the makeup of the FY23 provisions.
