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Structure of OMB The largest component of the Office of Management and Budget are the four Resource Management Offices (RMO) 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 even several federal agencies or may be assigned a topical area, such as monitoring issues relating to U.S. Navy battleships. 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 (PART) *, review proposed regulations, agency testimony, analyze pending legislation, and oversee the aspects of the PMA including agency management scorecards. In essence they are the “one stop shop” within OMB and the Executive Office of the President and 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 OIRA, OFPP, OFFM, and the Office of E-Government 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 (LRD). 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, BRD serves a purpose parallel to that of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) 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 clearinghouse across the federal government for proposed legislation or testimony by federal officials. LRD distributes proposed legislation and testimony to all relevant federal reviewers and distills the comments into a consensus opinion of the Administration about the proposal. They are also responsible for writing an Enrolled Bill Memorandum (EBM) to the President once a bill is presented by both bodies of Congress for the President’s signature. The EBM 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 (SAP) that let Congress know the White House’s official position on proposed legislation. History The Bureau of the Budget (BOB), OMB's predecessor, was established as a part of the Department of the Treasury by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. The BOB 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 RMO. Source Directors of the Office of Management and Budget Source Other famous people who worked at the OMB Related Links | ||||||||||
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