Tracking Federal Awards: USAspending.gov and Other Data Sources

Updated October 23, 2018 (R44027)
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Summary

USAspending.gov, available at http://www.USAspending.gov, is a government source for data on federal awards by state, congressional district (CD), county, and zip code. The awards data in USAspending.gov are provided by federal agencies and represent contracts, grants, loans, and other forms of financial assistance. USAspending.gov also provides tools for examining the broader picture of federal spending obligations by categories, such as budget function, agency, and object class.

Using USAspending.gov to locate and compile accurate data on federal awards can be challenging due, in part, to continuing data quality issues that have been identified by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Users of USAspending.gov need to be aware that while search results may be useful for informing consideration of certain questions, these results may be incomplete or contain inaccuracies.

USAspending.gov was created under P.L. 109-282, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA), and is being enhanced under requirements in P.L. 113-101, the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 (DATA Act).

Other federal awards data sources reviewed in this report include the following:


Introduction

USAspending.gov, available to the public at http://www.usaspending.gov, is a government source for data on federal grants, contracts, loans, and other financial assistance. The website enables searching of federal awards from FY2008 to the present by state, congressional district (CD), county, and zip code. Grant awards include money the federal government commits for projects in states, local jurisdictions, regions, territories, and tribal reservations, as well as payments for eligible needs to help individuals and families. Contract awards refer to bids and agreements the federal government makes for specific goods and services.

USAspending.gov also provides tools for examining the broader picture of federal spending obligations by categories, such as budget function, agency, and object class. Budget function refers to the major purpose that the spending serves, such as Social Security, Medicare, and national defense. Object class refers to the type of item or service purchased by the federal government, such as grants, contracts, and personnel compensation and benefits.

For Congress, the ability to more accurately track these federal awards is necessary to better inform oversight of federal spending. In recent years, Congress has passed laws to create and improve systems used by government departments and agencies to report and input data on federal awards for contracts, grants, and other financial assistance.

However, finding accurate and complete data on federal funds received by states and congressional districts continues to be challenging due to ongoing data quality problems identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in June 2014.2 A GAO report released in November 2017 assessed the quality of data reported by agencies in May 2017 under new DATA Act standards. GAO identified issues and challenges with the completeness and accuracy of the data submitted, use of data elements, and disclosure of data limitations on what was, at the time, a beta version of the new USAspending.gov website.3 The beta version has since become the official site as of March 2018 and the previous version is no longer available. According to a note on the site, data quality and display improvements will be continually made on a rolling basis. Users of USAspending.gov should be aware that although search results may be useful for informing consideration of certain questions, these results may also be incomplete or contain inaccuracies.

USAspending.gov Background

Origins

FFATA required OMB to create a public database of all federal funds awarded to the final recipient level. The DATA Act followed eight years later and required the Department of the Treasury and OMB to develop government-wide data standardization to consolidate, automate, and simplify reports on grant awards and contracts to improve underreporting and inconsistencies as identified by GAO.4 These requirements in the DATA Act were intended to expand on the transparency efforts originally mandated by FFATA, specifically by

In addition, no later than four years after enactment (by spring 2018), Treasury and OMB must ensure that all information published on USAspending.gov conforms to government-wide data standards. OMB is also required to issue guidance so that all agencies can follow government-wide data standards when reporting on grantee and contractor awards.

Types and Timing of Data

The data in USAspending.gov are submitted by federal agencies and represent awards, including grants, contracts, loans, and other financial assistance (e.g., Medicare benefits, food stamps, unemployment benefits). USAspending.gov does not include data on actual spending by recipients. Federal agencies are required to submit reports on awards transactions within 30 days after transactions are implemented. There may be a longer lag-time with data from the Department of Defense, generally 90 days.

Site Features

USAspending.gov enables congressional staff and the public to search back to FY2008 for prime and subaward data by state, congressional district, and other jurisdictions. The site includes the following features:

Issues with Tracking Awards

In addition to the data quality problems in USAspending.gov mentioned earlier,6 the following issues should be taken into consideration.

Recipient Location Versus Place of Performance

As recipients of federal grant funding, state and local governments may provide services directly to beneficiaries. Alternatively, a state may act as a pass-through, redisbursing federal grant funding to localities using a formula or a competitive process7 through subgrants or subcontracts. Both federal grant and procurement awards thus may have a where awarded vs. where spent component that is not fully identified in grant or procurement records.

For example, most federal grant funding is awarded to states, which then subaward or subcontract to eligible recipients elsewhere in the state (see Figure 1). So, a project's place of performance (where the award is spent) may therefore differ from the initial recipient location (where the funding is awarded).

Figure 1. Examples of Federal Spending Streams

Recipients at Multiple Levels

Source: Jerry Brito, George Washington University, 2009; and the Congressional Research Service, 2016.

In addition, a funding award may pass through multiple different jurisdictions (in different CDs) before reaching the final place of performance. For example,

Congressional District Data

The USAspending.gov advanced award search enables filtering by state and congressional district. When searching for CD data, note the following:

Other Data Sources

Federal Procurement Data System

The General Services Administration (GSA) maintains the Federal Procurement Data System–Next Generation (FPDS–NG) at https://www.fpds.gov/fpdsng_cms/index.php/en/, which contains statistical information on federal contracts. The FPDS–NG

For more refined searching, such as by CD, the FPDS Help Desk can guide congressional staff and the public through filtering for data needed (called ad hoc reports).

Federal Audit Clearinghouse

States, local governments, and nonprofits (including universities) spending $750,000 or more8 in federal grants during a fiscal year are required to submit an audit detailing expenditures. Data from the audits are posted on the Census Bureau's Federal Audit Clearinghouse, at https://harvester.census.gov/facweb/Default.aspx. No printed documents are produced.

U.S. Budget: Aid to State and Local Governments

The Analytical Perspectives volume of the President's budget covers various topics, including "Aid to State and Local Governments" (Chapter 14 in the FY2019 report).9 Federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments, U.S. territories, and American Indian tribal governments are intended to support government operations or the provision of services to the public. Grants are most often awarded as direct cash assistance, but federal grants-in-aid also can include payments for grants-in-kind—nonmonetary aid such as commodities purchased for the National School Lunch Program. Federal revenues shared with state and local governments also are considered grants-in-aid.10

The FY2019 budget proposes $749 billion in outlays for aid to state and local governments, an increase of 3% from FY2018.11 Individual program tables with state-by-state obligation data for grants-in-aid programs to state and local governments may be found on the OMB website. Tables 14-3 through 14-39 show state-by-state obligations for 35 federal grants-in-aid programs.12

Federal grants generally fall into one of two broad categories—categorical grants or block grants, depending on the requirements of the grant program. In addition, grants may be characterized by how the funding is awarded, such as by formula, by project, or by matching state and local funds. As recipients of federal grant funding, state and local governments may provide services directly to beneficiaries or states may act as a pass-through, disbursing grant funding to localities using a formula or a competitive process.13 As discussed above, this pass-through, or subawarding, at the state level makes tracking federally originated funds to the final recipient a challenge.

Pew Charitable Trust and National Priorities Project

The following projects analyze government-issued data on federal spending in states. CRS cannot validate either the research methodologies used or the conclusions drawn by the organizations. These sources are included here because they are frequently cited in policy papers and the media.

Sources of data include USAspending.gov, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Office of Personnel Management, and the Department of Defense; see Appendix Methodology at http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/Assets/2014/12/Federal_Spending_in_the_States_methodology_web_final.pdf.

For nearly three decades, through FY2010, the Census Bureau produced the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR), an annual look at the geographic distribution of federal spending (see discussion below). When the CFFR was discontinued, the Pew Charitable Trust Fiscal Federalism Initiative provided analysis to fill the gap. Data are divided into the five major categories used by the CFFR: (1) retirement benefits, (2) nonretirement benefits, (3) grants, (4) contracts, and (5) salaries and wages for federal employees.

Sources of data include USAspending.gov, the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For notes on methodology, see https://www.nationalpriorities.org/smart/resources/notes-and-sources/.

Through this project's interactive website, users can follow a representation of the flow of federal dollars to each state and the District of Columbia through spending on government personnel, contracts, aid to individuals (such as food stamps and Medicare), and public assistance programs. It also provides information on how much individuals and businesses in each state pay in federal taxes. Available data can be used to inform consideration of questions, such as

Federal Aid to States and the Consolidated Federal Funds Report

These Census Bureau reports, published from FY1983 to FY2010 and available at https://www.census.gov/govs/pubs/title.html, were the federal government's primary documents summarizing the geographic distribution of federal monies to states and counties, whether grants, contracts, or appropriations. The FY2010 Federal Aid to States (FAS) and Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR) were the last reports issued due to the termination of the Census Bureau's Federal Financial Statistics program. Federal obligations data continue to be posted on USAspending.gov, now the official source collecting federal awards data.

Selected Agency Grant Awards Databases and Information

USAspending.gov collects brief data on all federal grants and contracts awarded. However, some agencies, in particular those awarding research grants, also continue to post information on their own websites.

Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Department of Education (ED)

Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Department of Justice (DOJ)

Department of Labor (DOL)

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)

National Library of Medicine (NLM)

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)

Transportation Research Board (TRB)

Further Reading

Data Foundation and Deloitte, "DATA Act 2022: Changing Technology, Changing Culture," report, May 2017, at http://www.datafoundation.org/data-act-2022/.

U.S. Senate, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, "Federal Agency Compliance with the DATA Act," report, July 2018, at https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/investigations/media/new-psi-report-details-failure-of-federal-agencies-to-submit-accurate-data-on-how-they-spend-taxpayer-dollars.

Urban Institute, "Follow the Money: How to Track Federal Funding to Local Governments," research report, February 26, 2018, at https://www.urban.org/research/publication/follow-money-how-track-federal-funding-local-governments.

Author Contact Information

Jennifer Teefy, Senior Research Librarian ([email address scrubbed], [phone number scrubbed])

Footnotes

1.

Congress subsequently defunded the Census office that issued these reports in FY2012, with FY2010 Federal Aid to States (FAS) report and Consolidated Federal Funds Report (CFFR) being the last reports issued.

2.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) "estimates with 95 percent confidence that between 2 percent and 7 percent of the awards contained information that was fully consistent with agencies' records for all 21 data elements examined." See GAO Highlights, Data Transparency: Oversight Needed to Address Underreporting and Inconsistencies on Federal Award Website, GAO-14-476, June 2014, at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-476.

3.

GAO Highlights, DATA Act: OMB, Treasury, and Agencies Need to Improve Completeness and Accuracy of Spending Data and Disclose Limitations, GAO-18-1380, November 8, 2017, at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-138.

4.

GAO-14-476 (2014).

5.

USAspending.gov "About" page at https://www.usaspending.gov/#/about.

6.

For examples of the data quality problems GAO has identified in USAspending.gov, see the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov, particularly the search term USAspending.gov and the headers Data Transparency or Data Act.

7.

See CRS Report R42769, Federal Grants-in-Aid Administration: A Primer, by Natalie Keegan.

8.

For fiscal years prior to December 26, 2014, the threshold was $500,000 (https://harvester.census.gov/facweb/FAQs.aspx).

9.

OMB, "Chapter 14: Aid to State and Local Governments," Analytical Perspectives: Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2019, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Analytical_Perspectives. Note that Chapter 14 is variously numbered in earlier budgets.

10.

Ibid., p. 198.

11.

Ibid., p. 198.

12.

See Supplemental Materials as Spreadsheets, Tables 14-3 through 14-39, 2019 Budget State-by-State Tables, Analytical Perspectives, at http://www.budget.gov/budget/Analytical_Perspectives.

13.

See CRS Report R42769, Federal Grants-in-Aid Administration: A Primer, by Natalie Keegan.