The
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is a
Cabinet-level office, and is the largest office within the
Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). The current OMB Director is
Peter Orszag and was appointed by President
Barack Obama on the 15th December 2008
and confirmed by the
Senate on the 20th January 2009.
History
The Bureau of the Budget, OMB's predecessor, was established as a part of the Department of the Treasury by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. The Bureau of the Budget was moved to the
EOP in 1939, and reorganized into OMB in 1970 during the
Nixon administration. The first OMB included
Roy Ash (head),
Paul O'Neill (assistant director),
Fred Malek (deputy director) and
Frank Zarb (associate director) and two dozen others. In the 1990s, OMB was reorganized to remove the distinction between management staff and budgetary staff by combining those dual roles into each given program examiner within the Resource Management Offices .
Mission
The OMB's predominant mission is to assist the President in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and to supervise its administration in Executive Branch agencies. In helping to formulate the President's spending plans, the OMB evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities. The OMB ensures that agency reports, rules, testimony, and proposed legislation are consistent with the President's Budget and with Administration policies.
In addition, the OMB oversees and coordinates the Administration's procurement, financial management, information, and regulatory policies. In each of these areas, the OMB's role is to help improve administrative management, to develop better performance measures and coordinating mechanisms, and to reduce any unnecessary burdens on the public.
Structure
The Office contains significant numbers of both career and politically appointed staff; OMB staff provide important continuity within the EOP since several hundred career professionals remain in their positions regardless of which party occupies the White House. Six positions within OMB the Director, the Deputy Director, the Deputy Director for Management, and the administrators of the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the
Office of Federal Procurement Policy, and the
Office of Federal Financial Management are presidentially appointed and
Senate-
confirmed positions.
The largest component of the Office of Management and Budget are the four Resource Management Offices which are organized along functional lines mirroring the U.S. federal government, each led by an OMB associate director. Approximately half of all OMB staff are assigned to these offices, the majority of whom are designated as program examiners. Program examiners can be assigned to monitor one or more federal agencies or may be assigned a topical area, such as monitoring issues relating to U.S. Navy warships. These staff have dual responsibility for both management and budgetary issues, as well as responsibility for giving expert advice on all aspects relating to their programs. Each year they review federal agency budget requests and help decide what resource requests will be sent to Congress as part of the president’s budget. They perform in-depth program evaluations using the Program Assessment Rating Tool, review proposed regulations, agency testimony, analyze pending legislation, and oversee the aspects of the President's Management Agenda including agency management scorecards. They are often called upon to provide analysis information to any EOP staff member. They also provide important information to those assigned to the statutory offices within OMB, which are Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, the Office of Federal Financial Management, and the
Office of E-Government & Information Technology whose job it is to specialize in issues such as federal regulations or procurement policy and law.
Other offices are OMB-wide support offices which include the
Office of General Counsel, the
Office of Legislative Affairs, the
Budget Review Division (BRD), and the
Legislative Reference Division. The BRD performs government-wide budget coordination and is largely responsibly for the technical aspects relating to the release of the president’s budget each February. With respect to the estimation of spending for the
executive branch, the BRD serves a purpose parallel to that of the
Congressional Budget Office for the estimation of spending for Congress, the
Department of the Treasury for the estimation of revenues for the executive branch, and the
Joint Committee on Taxation for the estimation of revenues for Congress.
The Legislative Reference Division has the important role of being the central clearing house across the federal government for proposed legislation or testimony by federal officials. It distributes proposed legislation and testimony to all relevant federal reviewers and distils the comments into a consensus opinion of the Administration about the proposal. They are also responsible for writing an Enrolled Bill Memorandum to the president once a bill is presented by both bodies of Congress for the president’s signature. The Enrolled Bill Memorandum details the particulars of the bill, opinions on the bill from relevant federal departments, and an overall opinion about whether the bill should be signed into law or vetoed. They also issues Statements of Administration Policy that let Congress know the White House’s official position on proposed legislation.
Current Key Staff
- Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Peter Orszag
- * Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Rob Nabors
- ** Controller of the Office of Federal Financial Management: Daniel Werfel Pending Confirmation
- ** Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy: Vacant
- ** Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs: Cass R. Sunstein
List of Directors of the Office of Management and Budget
See also
