In November 2023, Congress passed, and President Biden signed, a laddered continuing resolution (CR), the Further Continuing Appropriations and Other Extensions Act, 2024 (H.R. 6363) to avert a government shutdown and keep the federal government funded into 2024. It is a two-tiered CR that funds the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Energy, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture through January 19, 2024. All other federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, are funded through February 2, 2024.

The first deadline – January 19 – is swiftly approaching.

On January 9, Congressional leaders announced they had reached an agreement on a top-line funding level of $1.66 trillion for Fiscal Year 2024, which began on October 1, 2023. If adopted, defense spending would be $886 billion while non-defense spending would be approximately $773 billion. Questions remain on how to specifically divide appropriations, which are traditionally allocated amongst 12 separate appropriations bills each year. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would lose $20 billion from the funds included in the Inflation Reduction Act as part of this agreement.

Given the tight deadline, several senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have said another short-term continuing resolution (CR), into March 2024, would be necessary to give appropriators time to complete their work with the new top-line agreement. While Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was previously adamantly opposed to another CR, he later indicated he would not rule that out. A partial government shutdown remains a distinct possibility and some in Congress would prefer that to another CR.

FMA will provide additional information as we receive it, via our website at www.fedmanagers.org, emails and other communications. Stay tuned in the coming days as negotiations over Fiscal Year 2024 funding continue.