The Federal Budget: A Complex Process

The federal budget process is meant to wrap up in time for the new fiscal year on October 1 — although it frequently misses that deadline.

Fortunately, the right technology and content can help your team navigate every twist, turn, and late-night involved in the budgeting process.

Deep-Dive Analysis

Your efforts will likely start with understanding how the budget cycle will intersect with your priorities — a process of discovery. For the best analysis of the budget and appropriations cycle available, look no further than Washington, D.C.’s most trusted news source, CQ and Roll Call.

• Our team consists of veteran appropriations reporters with decades of experience covering the annual budget process.
• Our budget and appropriations coverage goes above and beyond any other outlet on Capitol Hill, with deep-dive articles that carefully illustrate where the funding is expected to go.
• A daily budget newsletter straight from the newsroom highlights the latest developments in budget and appropriations, so you’re up to speed every morning.
• The CQ Budget Podcast provides a recap of the highlights of the week in an easily digestible format.
• Access draft appropriations bills before they’ve been assigned official bill numbers and receive automatic alerts when there’s movement on the federal budget.

Influence Policy

Engaging with such a complicated process requires comprehensive information that goes beyond high-level details and deep into the weeds of individual subcommittees, their members, and key staffers. PolicyNote’s issues management provides that depth of information, connecting the dots on legislators, their budget priorities, and their past votes. As your team uncovers opportunities to influence budget considerations, you’re equipped with the details you need to quickly begin outreach.

Coordination is also critical. PolicyNote stakeholder management tools provide best-in-class capabilities to assign actions relating to staffers and legislators, track conversations and engagements with those individuals, and measure the success or failure of those actions throughout the process. You’ll be able to stay abreast of how subcommittee outreach is unfolding across your team and budget priorities.

Monitor the Process

CQ and PolicyNote provide full analysis and coverage of the president’s budget, all subcommittee and full committee markups, full floor consideration, continuing resolutions (CR), conference agreements, and the omnibus. You can easily set up notifications within PolicyNote to let you know when changes are made to a particular bill so that you can stay ahead of developing legislation as each subcommittee’s budget submission is finalized.

As the appropriations bills are approved and budget items move into the procurement phase, the PolicyNote+ procurement dashboard enables you to track spending patterns more closely. For organizations pursuing government contracts, the dashboard displays a visual representation of where they exist across the country. You’ll also have access to on-demand consulting with  procurement experts for specific questions and in-depth research. The PolicyNote+ procurement dashboard and consulting services function as an extension of your team, enabling you to dedicate more time to executing your strategy, reaching out to partners, and preparing bids.