Glossary of Terms
Legislative And Regulatory Terms

Act: An act is a law passed by Congress and signed by the President.

Advance Funding: Funds that are appointed in one fiscal year for obligation and use in the following fiscal year.

Appropriation: The amount of funds Congress makes available for a program or agency in a fiscal year. An appropriation is the most common way to provide budget authority and usually follows an authorizing bill and budget ceiling period.

Authorization: Legislation that establishes or continues a federal program or agency and specifies the maximum amount of money Congress can spend for that program or agency. Authorizations generally are enacted before an appropriation or budget ceiling is enacted.

Back Door Spending: Budget authority or spending, mandated without action by the appropriation committees.

Budget Authority: Budget authority is the permission granted to an agency or department to create spending committees. Generally, budget authority is not the level at which a program or agency will be funded during a fiscal year, but it is merely the upper limit of spending commitments that can be made.

Comment Period: The Federal Register publishes proposed regulations in a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM). In the NPRM, a designated amount of time is allowed for response to the proposed regulations before they are put into final form. This time period is referred to as the comment period.

Committee: The term committee usually refers to a committee of the House or Senate.

Concurrent Budget Resolution: A resolution passed by both houses of Congress to set budget ceilings. The first concurrent resolution sets a budget target, and the second concurrent resolution revises or reaffirms the targets and sets a binding spending ceiling. The resolutions do not have to be signed by the President.

Conference Committee: Same as Joint Committee

Continuing Resolution: Legislation that extends authority and existing activities when a regular appropriations bill has not been enacted by the beginning of the fiscal year.

Controllability: The ability to limit or change spending for a program during the fiscal year without changing the program's authorizing statute. Uncontrollable generally refers to entitlement programs such as Social Security.

Current Funding: Funds that are appropriated, obligated and used in the same fiscal year.

Current Services Estimate: The cost of keeping a program and its existing funding level in the following fiscal year adjusted for inflation and other economic indicators.

Deferral: A presidential action that delays or precludes federal spending. Deferrals take effect in the fiscal year for which they are proposed, unless rejected in either the House or Senate.

Department: For the financial aid community, this usually refers to the Department of Education whose responsibility is to carry out the laws pertaining to education.

Entitlement: Legislation mandating the payment of benefits to any person or governmental body meeting the eligibility requirement for the fiscal year, the federal government's accounting period, which begins October 1 and ends the following September 30.

Final Regulation: These final regulations represent the guidelines which are used to implement a law passed by Congress. They are published in the Federal Register.

Floor: The floor refers to discussion and vote that takes place with the entire House or Senate.

Foward Funding: Funds that are appropriated in one fiscal year for obligation in that fiscal year and used in the following fiscal year. Most education programs are forward funded, including student aid.

Funciton: A classification that divides the federal budget into 19 functions or parts. Function 500, for example, includes budget allocations for education, training, employment and social services.

H.R.: The initials "H.R." before the number designated a bill originating in the House and mean "House of Representatives."

Impoundment: An action by the President to withhold money Congress has already appropriated.

Interim Final Regulation: In some cases, response from the educational community causes considerable change in the NPRM or time does not permit for the necessary comment period. Rather than publishing final regulation, the Department publishes Interim Final Regulations. This allows for the regulations to take effect and at the same time permits further response and consideration.

Joint Committee (Conference Committee): This term refers to a committee composed of members of the House and the Senate. A joint committee is usually convened in order to work out compromises on a bill.

Mark Up: This refers to the amending, redrafting and final drafting of a bill before it is taken to the floor.

Master Calendar: Final rules must be published on or before December 1 to be implemented for the subsequent July 1.

Notice of Proposed Rule Making: (NPRM) The NPRM is published in the Federal Register and is used to announce proposed regulations.

Obligations: Commitments of the federal government requiring spending.

Outlays: Outlays are the actual amount of dollars spent for a program agency.

Reconciliation: A process used by Congress to reconcile spending to the targets and ceilings enacted in the budget resolutions. Generally, reconciliation occurs because the second budget resolution brings spending targets and ceiling below those in the first budget resolution.

Regulation Rescission: A regulation represents the guidelines used to implement a law. An action that repeals appropriations not yet spent. A rescission is proposed by the President and must be approved by Congress within 45 days or the money must be released.

"S": Senate bills are designated by "S" and the assigned number. This initial identifies bills originating in the Senate.

Supplemental: Spending approved as an addition to the regular appropriation for a program or agency. Supplemental appropriation provides funding above original estimates for the program.

Unobligated: The amount of budget authority not yet spent for a single year appropriation. If the balance is available at the end of a fiscal year, it is returned to the U.S. Treasury.

Zero Based Budgeting: A budgeting technique that sets all funding levels to zero without considering increases or decreases from the current operating level. The federal budget process is built on incremental budgeting which sets funding levels as increases/decreases or no change from current spending.