Follow the flow › Step 11 of 16 · Money path
11. Agencies
Agencies are the parts of government that do the work: for example the Department of Defense, the EPA, or a state environment agency like TCEQ. Each agency plans programs, estimates what they will cost, and gets budget authority from the appropriation.
Who holds the money or the vote here?
The agency holds budget authority (permission to spend), but the cash is still in the Treasury.
How often does it happen?
Fiscal year; agencies report spending every month or quarter.
Where the records come from
Federal data is the same for everyone. When you pick a state, the state and local rows are the places to look for your state. "Have now" means PSI Sci already collects it; "Planned" means we list the source but do not collect it yet.
| Level | Source | Format | How often | On PSI Sci |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Federal | USAspending agency profiles PSI Sci collects this (fed-spending-agencies) | API | monthly | Have now |
| State | State agency budgets and spending (state comptroller transparency) (example: the Texas one) | page/bulk | monthly | Planned |
| County | County departments in the county budget | yearly | Planned | |
| City | City departments in the city budget | yearly | Planned | |
| District | Federal money by congressional district (USAspending) PSI Sci collects this (fed-spending-districts) | API | monthly | Have now |
| ZIP | (agencies are not split by ZIP; see contracts by place) | - | - | Not used |
See these sources as searchable records (rendered live).
See it on PSI Sci now
Variable names
| Variable | Federal | State | County | City | District | ZIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
agency_id | agency_id | agency_id | agency_id | agency_id | agency_id | agency_id |
agency_toptier_code | agency_toptier_code | agency_toptier_code | agency_toptier_code | agency_toptier_code | agency_toptier_code | agency_toptier_code |
budget_authority | fed_budget_authority | st_budget_authority | cnty_budget_authority | cty_budget_authority | dist_budget_authority | zip_budget_authority |
obligated_total | fed_obligated_total | st_obligated_total | cnty_obligated_total | cty_obligated_total | dist_obligated_total | zip_obligated_total |
outlay_total | fed_outlay_total | st_outlay_total | cnty_outlay_total | cty_outlay_total | dist_outlay_total | zip_outlay_total |
IDs (like bioguide_id, bill_id, piid, zcta) have no prefix because they already say what they point to.