What is an Appropriation?

An appropriation is authorization pursuant to laws or other legislative enactment directing the payment of goods and services out of government funds under specified conditions or for specified purposes.

There are several types of appropriation, among these are the following:

Automatic appropriation is one-time legislative authorization to provide funds for a specified purpose, for which the amount may or may not be fixed by law, and is made automatically available and set aside as needed. Since it is already covered by a separate law, it does not require periodic action by Congress, and need not be included in the legislation of annual appropriations. Among these items are: a) Debt Service (per P.D. No. 1967, R.A. 4860, and R.A. 245 as amended) – interest payments for foreign and domestic debt; b) Net Lending (P.D. 1177 and E.O. 292) – to GOCCs; c) Special Accounts – per specific laws, e.g., Wildlife Management Fund (DENR-R.A. 9147) sourced from fines etc. relating to the implementation of the Wildlife Act.

A continuing appropriation is an authorization that supports obligations (expenditures incurred and committed to be paid by the government) for a specific purpose or project, even when these obligations are incurred beyond the budget year.

A New General (Annual) appropriation is an authorization for incurring obligations during a specified budget year as contained in the General Appropriations Act (GAA). The GAA is the legislative authorization that contains the new annual appropriations authorized by Congress in specific amounts for salaries, wages and other personnel benefits; MOOE; and CO to be spent for the implementation of programs and activities of all departments, bureaus and offices of government for a given year.

An unprogrammed appropriation is a standby appropriations authorized under the annual general appropriations act which may be availed of upon occurrence of any of the instances and compliance with the conditions reflected in the special provisions under the Unprogrammed Appropriations.

Source: Glossary of Terms, Department of Budget and Management