On January 17th, President Obama signed an omnibus bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 that includes all 12 appropriations bills. The legislation is more than 1,500 pages long and is a tribute to a bipartisan commitment between Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Mikulski and House Appropriations Chairman Rogers to fund the government through legislation rather than Continuing Resolutions. For details about the bills you can visit the links below:

Bill Text and Explanatory Statements

Summaries by Subcommittee

Information Graphs

Summary Released by Senate Chairwoman Mikulski

Now that FY 2014 comes to a close, we turn to preparing for the FY 2015 season. The President’s budget is supposed to be sent to Congress in early February after the State of the Union (January 28th). The new normal tends to see that date slip by a few weeks/months.

While FY 2015 pass backs from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) were delayed while FY 2014 was being resolved, the process is now underway. According to CQ, the President’s budget is now expected to arrive on March 4th. This will then kick off appropriations season. It is expected (knock on wood) to be a bit more predictable this year as FY 2015 allocations were included in the budget deal passed in December.