AGA Today

Federal Accounting Corner

The FY2010 SF133 Section Four: Budget Authority and Outlays, Net
Two months ago I discussed section three of the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) new format of the SF‑133 Report on Budget Execution and the associated Standard General Ledger (SGL) account mapping. This month, I complete the series with section four (Treasury and OMB have yet to map section five to the SGL). As a review, the new SF‑133 format has five sections, using four-digit line numbers. It generally goes into more detail than the current format.

Budget Authority
Section four will start off with a new line in FY2010, Budget authority, gross (line 4000 for discretionary funding/BEA Category and line 4090 for mandatory). This includes all new changes to authority. The sum of lines 4000 and 4090 should be equal to the section one total on line 1900 less adjusted beginning balances from line 1050. To calculate it directly from the SGL account balances, take all activity (that is, exclude beginning balances) for accounts 4032 through 4398, exclude all prior-year adjustments (that is, Prior Year Adjustment flag of B or P), include activity from accounts 4872 and 4972, and exclude any activity from accounts 4048, 4134, 4144, 4147, 4152, 4176-4199, 4230-4234, 4281, 4295-4357 and 4396.

Gross Outlays
Currently all gross outlays are reported on line 19A, which are the paid delivered and undelivered orders excluding downward adjustments (that is, it includes only SGL Accounts 4802, 4882, 4902, 4908 and 4982). The new format will not only split them out by Budget Execution Authority (BEA) flag of discretionary and mandatory, but also by Year of Budget Authority. New discretionary outlays will be on line 4010, while discretionary outlays of prior-year authority will be on line 4011 (the total of both lines will be reported on line 4020). The mandatory BEA Category equivalents will be 4100, 4101 and the total line will be 4110. 

Offsetting Collections
The offsetting collections currently on line 19B will be split out into five separate lines within each BEA Category, and some SGL Accounts will be assigned to multiple lines. Most of the activity will show up on lines 4030 for discretionary and 4120 for mandatory, which report collections from federal sources. However, interest (and zero-coupon bond amortization) will be shown on line 4031 for federal securities and 4032 if not invested (lines 4121 and 4122 for mandatory). SGL Account 4273 will be used on both sets of lines, and the guidance says that the Finance Account Indicator from FACTS II can be used to determine on which line the balance should be reported. Only balances from certain FACTS II Fund Types should be reported; however, it is possible that only those Fund Types would have balances in SGL Accounts 4273 and 4290.  Most collections from non-federal sources will be reported on line 4033 (4123 for mandatory). The Transaction Partner value must be used to split out the amounts from SGL Accounts 4212, 4222, 4252 and 4972 between federal (lines 4030 and 4120) and non-federal (lines 4033 and 4123). In addition, governmental collections are on line 4034 (4124 for mandatory). This is represented by all activity in SGL Accounts 4260 and 4267, as well as activity in 4212 with Transaction Partner of E. Lines 4040 (discretionary) and 4130 (mandatory) total all of the offsetting collections. This same total, excluding SGL Account 4290 (zero-coupon bond amortization), is repeated on line 4052 for discretionary and 4142 for mandatory authority, but only for expired Fund Symbols.

Net outlays (gross outlays less offsetting collections) is reported on line 4080 for discretionary and 4170 for mandatory funding. It should be noted that, for all offsets, credits are shown as positive and debits as negative. The sum of net outlays for both discretionary and mandatory are shown on line 4190 (sum of 4080 and 4170). 

Budget Authority Offsets
Two additional offsets are listed for budget authority. The first offset, change in uncollected customer payments from federal sources, is reported on line 4050 for unexpired discretionary, 4051 for expired discretionary, 4140 for unexpired mandatory and 4141 for expired mandatory. These are the same as lines 3050 and 3051 in section three. The second offset, anticipated offsetting collections, is reported on line 4053 for discretionary and 4143 for mandatory. By definition, anticipations can only be recorded in unexpired Fund Symbols. The SGL Accounts listed are 4047, 4160 and 4165, but only amounts associated with Authority Type of S should be reported on these lines (they should be the same as the sum of lines 1741 and 1742 for discretionary, and 1841 and 1842 for mandatory funding).

The total of offsets on lines 4050-4053 is recorded on line 4060. Line 4070 has the net budget authority, which is calculated as line 4000 net of 4040 and 4060. Since line 4000 is calculated using debits as positive, and lines 4040 and 4060 calculated as using credits as positive, the net is calculated by adding them together. The equivalent lines for mandatory funding are 4150 (totaling 4140-4143) and 4160 (line 4090 net of 4130 and 4150). The sum of offsets for both discretionary and mandatory are shown on line 4180 (sum of 4070 and 4160).

Conclusion
Section four of the new SF-133 format can be tricky. I find the line numeration confusing; I think OMB should have retained the model used in section one and had mandatory funding's line numbers equal to 100 plus the discretionary line numbers; the totals of both mandatory and discretionary funds could have used the 4200 series.  However, even more confusing is that some account balances are reported only for expired funds and other only for unexpired, some account balances are reported only for Authority Type of offsetting collections, and some accounts are split out by Year of Budgetary Authority. Care must be taken when defining this section, especially since there are no cross-checks to ensure the total is correct. —Simcha Kuritzky, CGFM, CPA   

This column is provided as part of a free exchange of ideas in federal accounting, and is not reviewed substantively before publication. Please send all comments, queries, or corrections to Simcha.Kuritzky@CGIFederal.com