Reports to Congress under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995

Appendix 1

OMB Circular No. A­11 (1996), Section 43
Data on Acquisition, Operation, and Use of Information Technology

Appendix 2

Glossary of Agency Abbreviations and Common Names

Beginning with the agency reporting requirements for information supporting the FY 1996 budget request, exhibits 43a, 43b, and 43c were replaced with a single exhibit -- exhibit 43. In practical terms this means that information technology budget obligations are reported for the actual 1994 values in the new format. Agencies that obligated more than $50 million in any of the years Past Year (PY), Current Year (CY), or Budget Year (BY) for information technology activities were required to submit a report in the format of exhibit 43 on obligations for information technology for the agency as a whole as opposed to the older exhibit 43 which required submission from any agency which a) required obligations that exceeded $25 million over the information systems life cycle, or b) exceeded $10 million in any one year. The section within the old exhibit 43 specifying definitions, section 43.2, was replaced with a reference to section 111 of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (40 U.S.C. 759) and applicable GSA regulations (41 CFR chapter 21). Dollar amounts presented in the new exhibit 43 are shown in millions of dollars as opposed to the older exhibit 43 which had figures in thousands of dollars. The due date for the submission of exhibit 43 was moved from the dual submissions in FY 1995 to a single submission following the President's submission of the budget. The section of the older exhibit 43 specifying materials required to be submitted was redacted and the format of the report was simplified in the new exhibit 43. The new exhibit 43 added a section stressing thoughtful analysis for investment in information systems, section (b).

Materials required to support the FY 1996 budget request are the first to use the new format for exhibit 43. This format divides the IT budget into 9 categories, provides a summary figure, and totals for work years. The Equipment category is divided into two components; capital purchases and other equipment purchases/leases. The Software category is likewise divided into two components; capital purchases and other software purchases/leases. The remainder of the categories; Services, Support Services, Supplies, Personnel, Intra­governmental Payments, and Intra­governmental Collections, are not divided into components. One additional category, Other (DoD use only) has two components, capital purchases and other purchases.

There has been some confusion over what should be included in Intra­governmental payments, Intra­governmental collections, Services, and Support Services. Agency difficulties in accounting and reporting for intra­governmental payments and collections, as well as potential differences in agencies' identification of intra­governmental IT costs, result in a substantial gap between reported intra­governmental payments and reported intra­governmental collections. The discrepancy between the intra­governmental payments and collections has gotten so severe at this time that OMB has decided to make the assumption that the sum of the payments and collections in theory should be equal to zero. For this reason this year's report contains government­wide totals without including the intra­governmental transfers.

As a result of the increase in required obligation level, 21 fewer agencies submitted exhibit 43 to OMB in the materials required to support the FY 1996 budget request than for the FY 1995 budget request.

Historical Changes. Beginning with the materials required to support the FY 1991 budget request, the reporting threshold for the old version of Exhibit 43 was raised to $2.0 million (from $1.0 million) for any one year. As a result, ten small agencies no longer had to report this data. In the materials required to support the FY 1990 budget request, the sum of these ten agencies' requests equaled $14 million. Moreover, due to the organization changes brought on by the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, there was no report for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) in its old or reconstituted form. In the materials required to support the FY 1990 budget request, FHLBB had requested spending of $14 million.

In materials required to support the FY 1990 budget request, the Department of Defense (DoD) reports changed from previous years. The Conference Report accompanying the FY 1990 DoD appropriations capped DoD spending on Automated Data Processing (ADP) through Operations and Maintenance accounts. Complying with the report, DoD reexamined its definitions for spending on "ADP equipment" and discovered its reported spending was understated by nearly $650 million. Since then, DoD has consistently applied the corrected definitions.

The operating budget estimates are based on total expenditures for purchases of goods and services by the Federal sector, as published in the Special Analysis of "Federal Transactions in the National Income and Product Accounts" (NIPA) or as promulgated by OMB's Budget Analysis and Systems Division.⁽¹⁰⁾ It should be noted that this total includes some agencies such as the United States Postal Service and the ten small agencies that are not included in the totals for IT spending. OMB no longer publishes the agency­specific NIPA data that makes up the totals for the Federal operating budget in the NIPA. As a result, the total Federal operating budget has been used for all fiscal years reported.

10. National Income and Product Account Presentation, pages 267­270, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1996 -- Analytic Perspectives and OMB Budget Analysis and Systems Division.