About the Data Transparency Program

The laws governing our work on USAspending.gov

Our work on USAspending.gov comes from two laws:

Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (FFATA)

On September 26, 2006, FFATA was signed into law. The legislation required that federal contract, grant, loan, and other financial assistance awards be displayed on a publicly accessible and searchable website to give the American public access to information on how their tax dollars are being spent.

Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act)

On May 9, 2014, DATA Act was signed into law creating the purpose of the DATA Act Team. The legislation expanded FFATA to:

• include all direct agency spending and link federal contract, grant, and loan spending to specific agency programs,
• set government-wide standards for financial data so we can accurately show consistent, reliable, and searchable data,
• simplify reporting, streamline requirements for reporting, and reduce the cost of complying with the requirements, while improving transparency, and
• improve the quality of the data at USAspending.gov by holding agencies accountable.

The work we have done

We have worked collaboratively with the federal community and external stakeholders to achieve the goals of the DATA Act. The results of our efforts are visible through the Governmentwide Spending Data Model (GSDM) and USAspending.gov.

Governmentwide Submission Data Model (GSDM)

A core requirement of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) was the development of government-wide data standards to ensure the reporting of reliable, consistent federal spending data for public use.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Department of the Treasury (Treasury) completed the data definition standards, and Treasury used the data definition standards to develop the DATA Act data exchange standard, or Schema, first published as the DATA Act Information Model Schema (DAIMS) in April 2016.

Since then, Treasury has periodically published updates to include legislation and policies that go beyond the DATA Act. In November 2023, DAIMS was rebranded as the Governmentwide Spending Data Model (GSDM) to include new legislation and policies. The latest version is provided on the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service) Data Transparency Governmentwide Spending Data Model (GSDM) web page.

DATA Act Information Model Schema (DAIMS)

Many programs in the federal government have the same types of data about contracts, grants, loans, and so on. But they weren't all defining their data elements in the same way. That made it hard to share or compare data across agencies and programs. In response to this difficulty a core requirement of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act) was the development of government-wide data standards. The standard was first published as the DATA Act Information Model Schema (DAIMS) in April 2016.

Therefore, we had to develop government-wide standard definitions and requirements for data elements. To get to standard definitions for data elements, we:

• worked with people both within and outside the government in our "collaboration space",
• helped the community within that collaboration space propose standards (white papers) for core data elements and definitions, and
• sent the results of our collaboration to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) where OMB on August 31, 2015 created the finalized definitions and data standards.

USAspending.gov

While we were working on getting standards for the data, we were also improving how to show the data. We did this through research, design, and testing using best practices for involving users and making sure the site works well for people: user-centered design with personas and agile development.

USAspending.gov  is the official website of the DATA Act. The website lets everyone see how the U.S. government spends money. You can follow the money from the Congressional appropriations to the federal agencies and down to local communities and businesses. The website improves access to and use of federal financial data in order to strengthen government-wide decision-making, transparency, and accountability.

The work we continue to do

Through its Office of Data Transparency, the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service) delivers on Treasury’s strategic goal to increase access to and use of federal financial data in order to strengthen government-wide decision-making and accountability through data transparency.

This work seeks to give the public and federal agencies access to a greater range of financial data. The Office of Data Transparency works to improve the value, quality, and availability of federal financial data.

Fiscal Service’s data transparency work builds upon and uses successes and lessons learned from the DATA Act. We continue to expand GSDM and look for opportunities to improves data quality, enhance the usability of USAspending.gov, and look for new ways to draw value and insights from federal spending data.

Fiscal Data

Fiscal Data is your one-stop shop for federal financial data. The Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service created Fiscal Data to consolidate federal financial data into one easy-to-use website.

Fiscal Data adheres to modern data practices and offers data in machine-readable formats through file downloads and application programming interfaces (APIs). With both historical and current data, Fiscal Data is your hub for fiscal data. Download datasets on topics such as debt, interest rates, and more.