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Freedom251 › Blog › Act 146 waivers

How to Track Pennsylvania Budget Waivers and Agency Spending Over Time

By Freedom251 Team · · 5 min read

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To track Pennsylvania’s lapse-related budget waivers, follow the Act 146 request and approval-stage documents on Treasury’s OpenBookPA, then compare them cautiously with monthly expenditure reports from the Office of the Budget. A waiver document shows a request and its review path; it does not prove that the requested money was later spent.

What Pennsylvania’s Act 146 budget waivers cover

Here, “budget waiver” means the specific lapse-related process described by Pennsylvania Treasury—not Medicaid waivers, regulatory exceptions, or every kind of budget adjustment. Treasury says Section 621(m) of Act 146 authorizes the Budget Secretary, on an agency’s written request justifying an exception as being in the Commonwealth’s best interests, to waive provisions of Section 621. The stated purpose is to let agencies use remaining funds for state operations and programs after the June 30 lapse date. Treasury’s Act 146 Waivers page explains the process and lists records by fiscal year.

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How to find and follow a waiver record

  1. Open the Act 146 Waivers collection. On OpenBookPA’s Act 146 Waivers page, browse or search the listed records by fiscal year and agency. Check the page’s actual fiscal-year listings rather than assuming that all historical years are present.
  2. Separate the request from the later memo. Treasury describes a letter from the Budget Secretary to the chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees transmitting an agency request and justification for review and comment. A later “10-Day Memo” is a distinct record: Treasury says it is issued ten days after the initial request and approves the waiver if no committee objection was raised during the review period. Do not treat the letter and memo as a single event.
  3. Capture the details stated in the documents. For each record, note the agency, fiscal year, request date, amount if provided, named program or appropriation, justification, 10-Day Memo date, and any conditions. Leave a field unknown if the document does not state it; do not fill it from a similarly named budget line.
  4. Save the source and observation date. Keep links or filenames for both stages and record when you reviewed them. That makes later changes or newly posted records easier to distinguish from what was available at the time of your comparison.

Treasury announced on September 30, 2026, that FY 2025-26 waiver records had been added to OpenBookPA. It described the release as approximately 100 letters and corresponding memos; that is an approximate document count, not a count of agencies, approved waivers, or dollars. Treasury’s announcement is the source for the release date and count.

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Where to find agency spending by month

Status of Appropriations reports

The Office of the Budget publishes monthly Status of Appropriations reports summarizing expenditure activity by agency and line-item appropriation. It provides separate General Fund and Special Funds reports. Preserve the report month, fund type, agency, and line-item identity with every figure you record. The page’s available months change; at the time reflected by the cited information, it showed reports through August 2026, so check the official page for the latest posting rather than relying on that month as current.

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PennWATCH

PennWATCH offers a broader view of state budget, spending, revenue, employees, and performance. Its figures carry labels for reporting period and scope—for example, fiscal-year-to-date spending or General Fund budget totals. Save those labels alongside each snapshot: a figure without its period and fund scope is difficult to compare reliably.

Budget documents for context

The Office of the Budget’s Commonwealth Budget page lists current and past budget documents. Use the materials relevant to the waiver’s fiscal year to understand the appropriation context, while distinguishing proposed, enacted, and rebudget figures. The Office’s Budget Process in Pennsylvania guide describes the broader cycle from planning through audit and evaluation; it is background, not a substitute for the waiver documents or expenditure reports.

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How to compare waivers with reported spending

A careful comparison matches records across several dimensions before drawing a conclusion. Use the closest available appropriation-level match, and describe uncertain links as associations to investigate—not confirmed matches.

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Comparison field What to align
Fiscal year and date Match the waiver’s fiscal year and request or memo date to the expenditure report’s period. Do not compare monthly or fiscal-year-to-date activity directly with a year-end total as though they were the same measure.
Agency and program Match the agency and, where possible, the named program or appropriation. Similar agency or program wording alone does not establish that two records concern the same dollars.
Fund type Keep General Fund and Special Funds records distinct unless the source documents establish a valid connection.
Document stage Label whether the waiver record is the request letter or the 10-Day Memo; they document different stages.
Measure Identify whether the figure is an appropriation, expenditure activity, remaining balance, or another measure. Do not treat those measures as interchangeable.
Time basis Retain whether a figure is monthly, fiscal-year-to-date, or year-end, along with the specific report or snapshot date.

Treasury’s waiver description and the Office of the Budget’s expenditure reports serve different purposes, and the cited pages do not specify a universal transaction identifier or a guaranteed row-by-row link from every waiver to later spending. A request is not expenditure evidence; a 10-Day Memo is an approval-stage record, not proof that the full requested amount was spent. Reported expenditure activity can help monitor what followed, but do not claim the waiver caused spending or that the requested sum was spent unless records establish that connection.

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What to do when a record is missing

If an Office of the Budget record is not available online, use its Right-to-Know process. The Office says a written request should identify the records sought and lists [email protected] as a submission channel. Be as specific as possible about fiscal year, agency, appropriation, report period, and document type so the request identifies the records you need.

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Keep a usable tracking log

A simple spreadsheet can preserve the distinctions that matter without implying more certainty than the documents provide. Use separate columns for the waiver and spending records rather than placing both amounts under one generic “budget” heading.

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  • Waiver record: fiscal year, agency, request date, stated amount, named appropriation or program, justification, 10-Day Memo date, conditions, source link, and review date.
  • Spending observation: report or snapshot date, fiscal period, agency, fund type, line-item appropriation, expenditure measure and amount, source link, and any scope label.
  • Match assessment: record which fields align, which do not, and whether the relationship is confirmed by the source or only a plausible association.

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Act 146 waiversagency spendingOpenBookPAPennsylvania budgetPennWATCH

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