Cyclopedia of Congressional Budget Law

Program Account

Summary

A program account can be a term simply to describe the account through which any given program is funded. This is a vague description since most programs will have numerous accounts funding different activities.

A more specific definition for the term is its association with Federal Credit and is use in tracking the flows of receipts and outlays from loans and loan guarantees:  

Government programs may be carried out through federally supported credit in the form of direct loans or loan guarantees. A direct loan is a disbursement of funds by the Government to a non-Federal borrower under a contract that requires the repayment of such funds with or without interest. A loan guarantee is any guarantee, insurance, or other pledge with respect to the payment of all or a part of the principal or interest on any debt obligation of a non-Federal borrower to a non-Federal lender. The Federal Credit Reform Act prescribes the budget treatment for Federal credit programs. This treatment is designed to measure the subsidy cost of direct loans and guaranteed loans in the budget, rather than the cash flows, so they can be compared to each other and to other methods of delivering benefits, such as grants, on an equivalent basis.

Under credit reform, the estimated long-term cost to the Government arising from the direct loans and loan guarantees of a credit program must be estimated and recorded in the budget in a credit program account. The cost is estimated as the present value of expected disbursements over the term of the loan less the present value of expected collections. For most programs, direct loan obligations and loan guarantee commitments cannot be made unless Congress has appropriated funds for the costs in advance in annual appropriations acts. In addition, the appropriation language for most credit programs includes annual limitations on the amount of obligations for direct loans and commitments for loan guarantees.

When a direct or guaranteed loan is disbursed, the program account makes a payment equal to the cost, which is recorded as an outlay, to a non-budgetary credit financing account. For a few programs, the computed cost is negative for a portion or all of the direct loans and loan guarantees. In such cases, the financing account makes a payment to a special fund receipt account established for the program, where it is recorded as an offsetting receipt.

The cost of the outstanding direct and guaranteed loans is reestimated each year. If the cost is estimated to have increased, an additional outlay is made from the program account to the financing account, and, if the cost is estimated to have decreased, a payment is made from the financing account to the program’s special fund receipt account, where it is recorded as an offsetting receipt. A permanent appropriation is available to pay the increased costs resulting from reestimates.

If the terms of an outstanding direct loan or loan guarantee are modified in a way that increases the cost, an outlay in the amount of the increased cost is made from the program account to the financing account. The additional cost is recorded as an obligation against the budget authority provided for the costs of the program for that year. The requirement to record the costs of modification applies to pre-credit reform, as well as post-credit reform, direct loans and loan guarantees.

Credit financing accounts record all cash flows to and from the Government arising from direct loan obligations and loan guarantee commitments. These cash flows consist mainly of direct loan disbursements and repayments and loan guarantee default payments. The cash flows of direct loans and of loan guarantees are recorded in separate financing accounts for programs that do both. The transactions of the financing accounts are displayed in the budget documents for information and analytical purposes, together with the related program accounts, but are excluded from the budget totals because they are not a cost to the Government. Financing account transactions are a means of financing a budget surplus or deficit (see Credit Financing Accounts below).

The transactions associated with direct loan obligations and loan guarantee commitments made prior to 1992 continue to be accounted for on a cash flow basis and are recorded in liquidating accounts. In most cases, the liquidating account is the account that was used for the program prior to the enactment of credit reform in 1990.

[Derived from material produced by the Office of Management and Budget]

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GAO Glossary of Terms and Definition (September 2005)

Program Account

See under Credit Program Account under Credit Reform Act Accounts under Federal Credit.

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