Reconciling Treasury's 'Federal Aid to States' Report With Community Services Administration's 'Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds' Report

摘要

This memo documents some of the differences between the Department of the Treasury's ''Federal Aid to States'' (FATS) and the Community Services Administration's ''Geographic Distribution of Federal Funds'' (FIXS)). The FATS and FIXS reports are also briefly compared with the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) ''Special Analysis, Federal Aid to State and Local Governments'' (FATSLG). These reports constitute three of the most widely known and used data bases for tracking Federal spending patterns. The FATS report is compiled annually by the Bureau of Government Financial Operations, Division of Government Accounts and Reports, the Department of the Treasury. FATS lists actual outlays reported on a check - issued basis for the past fiscal year. Like FATSLG, FATS reports only on Federal grants - in - aid to State and local governments. Because FATS is designed to provide detailed support for FATSLG, the dollar amounts are reconciled with the identical grants - in - aid reported in FATSLG. FIXS is compiled annually by the Community Services Administration to report all obligations incurred from Government - administered funds on a fiscal year basis. The memo compares accounting systems used in the reports and analyzes data in the reports on a national basis and on patterns of distribution. The memo concludes that because these three reports are based on different data sources and accounting systems, any comparison among the three will require the development of a crosswalk among the reports that reconciles these differences. Tables are supplied.