Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on 606 federal financial assistance programs for which state and local governments were eligible applicants, focusing on the: (1) financial obligations for each program; (2) state or local eligibility; (3) type of financial assistance; (4) sponsoring federal agency; and (5) budget function.

GAO found that: (1) fiscal year (FY) 1990 obligations totalled $155.3 billion for the 606 programs; (2) 24 programs, each with obligations over $1 billion, had combined obligations of $121.5 billion and accounted for 78 percent of FY 1990 total obligations; (3) 70 programs having obligations of under $1.5 million each accounted for .03 percent of total obligations and had combined obligations of $50.4 million; (4) 244 programs were targeted to states and 35 to localities, while either type of government was eligible for the remaining 327 programs; (5) 425 programs provided assistance through discretionary project funding; (6) the Departments of Health and Human Services and Education had the largest number of programs, 193 and 119 respectively; and (7) 214 programs were categorized by the budget function for education, training, employment, and social services.