This pilot focused agency efforts on 12 categories. For each category, agencies were asked to work with OMB to identify associated programs and provide for each program descriptive information and two years of historical spending data. These categories were not intended to be comprehensive of all types of Federal spending. They were chosen based on the availability of generally accepted definitions and regular OMB-led data calls as well as their expected value in providing unique insights for the purposes of improving the data collection for future iterations of the inventory.
The data on this website are not the authoritative source of US Federal government spending data for the categories in this pilot. Since this is a pilot, OMB observed limitations with the quality and comprehensiveness of the data. Even with these limitations, we released the data because OMB has learned from previous efforts that agencies’ time would be better spent working with stakeholders to determine where this pilot identified the right programs and where it missed the mark. Once there is agreement on the appropriate programs to include on the inventory, efforts can turn to identifying the most efficient and effective means to collecting information about those programs. Click here to learn more about what the pilot asked agencies to provide and the known data limitations.
