OMB fails to submit annual antiterror spending report on time

Since 1998, Congress has required OMB to submit an annual report that details spending on antiterrorism by government agencies, but lawmakers have never received the information on time, according to a new study from the General Accounting Office.

OMB issues the report, due annually by March 1, in late spring or the summer, making the data available too late in the congressional appropriations process for lawmakers to consider it in making informed budget decisions, the report (03-170) concluded.

OMB is also supposed to identify duplicative agency antiterror efforts to help lawmakers make funding decisions, but has not addressed that issue in its reports, GAO found.

Part of the problem lies in the number of agencies involved in combating terrorism and the varying missions of those agencies, according to the report.

"These federal agencies represent different types of organizations, including those involved in intelligence, law enforcement, military matters, health services, environmental protection, emergency management and diplomacy," the report said. "In addition, these agencies undertake a wide variety of activities to combat terrorism, including prevention, detection, crisis response, criminal prosecution, and consequence management, which require effective interagency coordination."

Also, the report said, many agencies fail to specify which of their budget dollars are used to fight terrorism.

"For example, according to OMB officials, funding for the salaries of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents assigned to combating terrorism activities are not separately identified from the salaries of agents assigned to white-collar crime and other activities," the report noted.

To make the report more useful and provide Congress with the much-needed information in a timely fashion, GAO recommended that OMB adhere to the March 1 deadline, require agencies to document their terrorism spending habits in the database OMB uses to compile the president's annual budget, and identify areas of duplication.

In its response to GAO, OMB said that including specific information on which budget dollars were allocated toward antiterror initiatives would not be useful in the annual report. According to OMB, the database that collects information for specific programs corresponds to major agency activities, and those activities may or may not line up with antiterror programs. To separate such information, OMB would have to add an extra step to its data collection, which would not yield enough insight on agencies' antiterror initiatives to warrant the effort, OMB said.

"While OMB staff acknowledged that OMB examiners use obligation data in assessing the appropriateness of agency budget requests overall, they felt that budget authority data provide the most insight into combating terrorism programs and facilitate follow-up on areas of concern," the GAO report said.