Federal Programs: OMB Needs to Continue Developing a Complete and Useful Inventory
Fast Facts
The Office of Management and Budget must publish an annual list of all federal programs—including funding and performance information. But it hasn't done so. Such an inventory could help decision-makers and the public better understand what the government does, spends, and achieves. This is the second in a series of reports reviewing OMB's inventory efforts.
OMB made progress in 2025 by updating its inventory of over 2,600 programs—covering more than $7 trillion in federal spending.
We recommended ways for OMB to complete the inventory and make it more useful, such as by disclosing what programs and data are missing from it.
The United States Capitol building during the day
Highlights
What GAO Found
Each year, the federal government spends trillions of dollars on federal programs that support the American people and address policy goals. Statutory provisions first enacted in 2011 require the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop and annually update an inventory of all federal programs.
OMB’s January 2025 update to the federal program inventory website demonstrates continued progress in fulfilling statutory requirements. However, OMB has not yet fully addressed 13 of the 20 requirements. For example, the inventory does not yet include all federal programs, such as foreign assistance or defense programs. It also does not provide all required program, spending, and performance information for the more than 2,600 programs currently included in it. Without a complete inventory, decision-makers lack a critical tool to help them better identify and manage fragmentation, overlap, and duplication across the federal government.
GAO identified opportunities for OMB to improve the transparency and usefulness of the inventory. GAO found that the inventory was not fully consistent with four out of five related key practices GAO’s work previously identified, which can help ensure federal websites address relevant requirements.
Inventory Consistency with Key Practices for Transparent and Useful Websites
For example, the practice to fully describe the data involves an action to disclose known data quality issues and limitations. GAO found that OMB had disclosed some inventory data quality issues, such as potential discrepancies between two different sources of program spending data. GAO’s assessment identified additional quality issues, such as inactive programs being included in the inventory and missing spending data.
GAO also sought perspectives from 10 organizations that represented actual and potential inventory users. Their feedback at times aligned with GAO’s assessment. For example, five stated that the inventory would be more useful if it more clearly stated its limitations, such as identifying the types of programs not yet included and the proportion of federal spending those programs represent.
Without fully incorporating the key practices into its activities for managing the website, OMB cannot ensure that the inventory addresses relevant federal requirements or provides transparent and useful information that meets the needs of various users, such as Congress, agency leaders, and the public.
Why GAO Did This Study
A comprehensive listing of programs, along with related funding and performance information, would help federal decision-makers and the public better understand what the government does, spends, and achieves each year.
The William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 includes provisions for GAO to review program inventory implementation. This is the second report in a series of products responding to those provisions and assesses the extent to which (1) the inventory provides information consistent with statutory requirements, and (2) opportunities exist to improve the transparency and usefulness of the inventory.
To address these objectives, GAO compared the information on the January 2025 inventory website to statutory requirements and key practices for transparent and useful websites. GAO also obtained perspectives from 10 selected organizations that represented a range of actual and potential users, such as recipients of federal awards and federal agency management.
Recommendations
GAO is making 17 recommendations to OMB: 13 recommendations relate to fully addressing statutory requirements to implement a complete inventory, and 4 recommendations relate to taking actions consistent with key practices for enhancing the inventory’s transparency and usefulness.
OMB did not provide comments.
Recommendations for Executive Action
| Agency Affected | Recommendation | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to identify and include all program types to ensure the inventory is complete. (Recommendation 1) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to archive and preserve the information included in the program inventory and make the archived information publicly available as an open government data asset. (Recommendation 2) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide definitions for each program type. This should include guidance to help agencies consistently implement the definitions, including what constitutes an active program for inclusion in the inventory. (Recommendation 3) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to identify the program activities that are aggregated, disaggregated, or consolidated for each program in the inventory. (Recommendation 4) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide the statutes that authorize each program in the inventory. (Recommendation 5) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to identify any major regulations related to each program in the inventory or clearly state that there are not any. (Recommendation 6) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide appropriated amounts for the current and prior 2 fiscal years for each program in the inventory or an explanation of why doing so is not practicable. (Recommendation 7) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide obligated amounts for the current and prior 2 fiscal years for each program in the inventory or an explanation of why doing so is not practicable. (Recommendation 8) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to identify, for each program, how it contributes to its agency's mission and goals. At a minimum, this should include relevant agency strategic goals, strategic objectives, and performance goals, as well as cross-agency priority goals and agency priority goals, or clearly state that there are not any. (Recommendation 9) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide, for each program listed in the inventory, links to relevant evidence about program performance. This should include agency performance reports, GAO reports, Inspector General reports, and evidence created pursuant to the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018, as applicable. (Recommendation 10) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to identify, for each federal financial assistance program listed in the inventory, how programs link to assistance listings for the current and prior 2 fiscal years. (Recommendation 11) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide, for each federal financial assistance program listed in the inventory, information on the population intended to be served by each financial assistance program for the current and prior 2 fiscal years. (Recommendation 12) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that OMB's plans to implement the inventory address requirements to provide, for each federal financial assistance program listed in the inventory, the percentage of the appropriated amounts used for management and administration for the current and prior 2 fiscal years or an explanation of why doing so is not practicable. (Recommendation 13) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that the data governance activities for the federal program inventory are fully consistent with the key practice to engage with users. (Recommendation 14) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that the data governance activities for the federal program inventory are fully consistent with the key practice to provide data in useful formats. This should include providing comparable information for all program types, as applicable, such as population served for tax expenditures; and using standard definitions for data elements, for example, by developing a data dictionary. (Recommendation 15) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that the data governance activities for the federal program inventory are fully consistent with the key practice to fully describe the data. This should include providing a log of changes made to the inventory website and data with information on when those changes occurred. (Recommendation 16) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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| Office of Management and Budget | The Director of OMB should ensure that the data governance activities for the federal program inventory are fully consistent with the key practice to facilitate data discovery for all users. This should include conducting usability testing; providing plain language definitions of all key terms and concepts on the website; allowing users to search all available data elements; and linking to data sources for all programs in the inventory and ensuring those websites also contain links to the inventory. (Recommendation 17) |
When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.
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