As ordered reported by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on August 6, 2026
By Fiscal Year, Millions of Dollars | 2026 | 2026-2031 | 2026-2036 | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Direct Spending (Outlays) | 0 | * | * | ||||||||
Revenues | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||||
Increase or Decrease (-) in the Deficit | 0 | * | * | ||||||||
Spending Subject to Appropriation (Outlays) | 0 | * | not estimated | ||||||||
Increases net direct spending in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2037? | No | Statutory pay-as-you-go procedures apply? | Yes | ||||||||
Mandate Effects | |||||||||||
Increases on-budget deficits in any of the four consecutive 10-year periods beginning in 2037? | No | Contains intergovernmental mandate? | No | ||||||||
Contains private-sector mandate? | No | ||||||||||
* = between -$500,000 and $500,000. | |||||||||||
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S. 2732 would expand agencies’ authority to pay cash awards to employees who identify unnecessary amounts provided for agencies’ salaries and expenses. Under current law, agencies may pay cash awards to employees whose disclosure of fraud, waste, or mismanagement result in cost savings.
Under the bill, if an agency’s inspector general or other designated employee and chief financial officer determine that funds appropriated to the agency are no longer required, then those surplus amounts would be transferred to the Treasury. The agency could retain up to 10 percent of the surplus funds and use those amounts to pay cash awards to employees who identified the surplus funds, or for other authorized purposes. Amounts transferred to the Treasury would be used for deficit reduction or, in a fiscal year with no federal budget deficit, to reduce federal debt.
Based on the cost of similar administrative activities, CBO estimates that administering the program would have insignificant costs. Any related spending would be subject to the availability of appropriated funds.
Similarly, enacting S. 2732 could affect direct spending for administrative costs by some agencies that are allowed to use fees, receipts from the sale of goods, and other collections to cover operating costs. CBO estimates that any net changes in direct spending by those agencies would be negligible because most of them can adjust amounts collected to reflect changes in operating costs.
If amounts returned to the Treasury are from appropriations enacted before the enactment of S. 2732, the bill would reduce direct spending. If the process envisioned under S. 2732 results in fewer expenditures from funds appropriated in the future, implementing the bill would reduce spending subject to appropriation. CBO has no basis for estimating the size of any such reductions under the bill.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Matthew Pickford. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.
Phillip L. Swagel
Director, Congressional Budget Office