A First Look at the President’s Discretionary Budget Request for FY 2022

On Friday, April 9, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the Biden Administration’s initial fiscal year (FY) 2022 Discretionary Budget Request. The new administration’s initial budget proposal includes a total of $1.5T in top-line discretionary budget requests for the federal department and agencies, plus the administration’s policy and budget priorities in broad strokes. A full federal budget release is expected to be launched in early May.

In the meantime, the Federal Market Analysis team at GovWin from Deltek has dug into the available budget detail in order to provide their first impressions of what they found noteworthy in the discretionary budget request. They reviewed the largest federal departments’ budgets to get a sense of direction and priorities for FY 2022, which will begin October 1, 2021.

Below is a summary graphic followed by key funding details arranged by department, including the five civilian departments with the highest budgeted levels of spend: Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Education, State and USAID, and Housing and Urban Development.

As shown above, the Department of Defense budget takes up the lion’s share. The president’s budget request provides $715B in discretionary funding for the DoD, 1.6% more than the $703.7B the DOD enacted for Fiscal Year 2021. In addition, five other civilian departments are expected to have funding above $55M.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Budget

The president’s budget request provides $131.7B in base discretionary budget authority for HHS, which is a 23.5% increase from the FY 2021 enacted level.

Veterans Affairs (VA) Budget

The president’s budget request provides $113.1B in base discretionary budget authority for VA, an 8.2% increase over the FY 2021 enacted level. The request also includes $111.3B in advance appropriations for VA medical care programs in FY 2023.

Education Budget

The president’s budget request provides $102.8B in base discretionary budget authority for Education, which is a 41% increase from the FY 2021 enacted level.

State and USAID Budget

The president’s budget provides $63.5B in total discretionary funding for the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and related international assistance programs, a $6.8B increase from the FY 2021 enacted level. (One note, this total also includes $3.3B for the international programs at the Department of the Treasury.) Of the total, $58.4B is slated for the Department of State and USAID, a $5.4B (+10%) increase from the 2021 enacted level.

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Budget

The FY 2022 Discretionary Budget Request appropriates $68.7B (including offset receipts) for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 15.1% more than the $59.6B enacted for Fiscal Year 2021. Without the offset HUD receives $58.2B in discretionary funding, $7.4B above the FY 2021 enacted level.

The summary points above are the initial observations from OMB’s budget document release. In the coming days and weeks as details become available the GovWin Federal Market Analysis team will be sharing more robust analysis the FY 2022 budget – including an analysis of the full budget once it is released, which will go into greater detail on the key initiatives, IT investments and contractor implications that will shape the federal IT marketplace as we head into FY 2022. They will also host a webinar highlighting President Biden’s first 100 days in office - which will be live on April 29 and available on-demand afterwards – with a specific focus on unpacking specific need-to-know updates related to doing business with the government.