Budget Formulation for Federal Agencies: What Program Offices Get Wrong Before the President’s Budget
April 23, 2026
Budget formulation is one of the most consequential activities a federal agency performs each year — and one of the most misunderstood. The decisions made during formulation determine not just what an agency can fund, but how credibly it can defend those funding decisions to OMB, to appropriators, and to oversight bodies. When formulation goes wrong, agencies spend the rest of the fiscal year managing the consequences. We help federal agencies build budget formulation processes that are analytically sound, strategically aligned, and defensible under scrutiny. Our work spans the full formulation cycle — from developing program justifications and performance-based budget