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To track Pennsylvania’s Act 146 budget waivers, follow each agency’s request letter and later 10-Day Memo on OpenBookPA, then compare the details with the Office of the Budget’s monthly Status of Appropriations reports and appropriately labeled PennWATCH figures. A request or memo is not proof that the requested funds were later spent: the records serve different purposes, and a reliable comparison depends on matching the fiscal year, agency, fund, appropriation, dates, and spending measure.
What a Pennsylvania budget waiver means in this guide
Here, “budget waiver” refers specifically to the lapse-related process under Section 621(m) of Act 146, as described by Pennsylvania Treasury. The Budget Secretary may waive provisions of Section 621 when an agency submits a written request explaining why an exception is in the Commonwealth’s best interests. The process allows agencies to use remaining funds for state operations and programs after the June 30 lapse date. Treasury’s OpenBookPA Act 146 Waivers page describes the process and provides records for listed fiscal years.
This is not a general guide to every Pennsylvania waiver. It does not cover Medicaid waivers, regulatory exceptions, or legislative budget adjustments.
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- Find the waiver records. Open the Act 146 Waivers page on OpenBookPA and browse or search the available records by fiscal year and agency. Check which fiscal years are actually listed; the archive’s complete historical coverage is not established by the available announcements.
- Log the request letter as its own event. Treasury describes a letter from the Budget Secretary to the chairs of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. It transmits the agency’s request and justification for review and comment. Record the agency, fiscal year, request date, requested amount if stated, named program or appropriation, and the justification.
- Look for the later 10-Day Memo. Treasury says this memo is issued ten days after the initial request and approves the waiver if no committee objection was raised during the review period. Record its date and any conditions stated. Do not treat the request letter and the memo as one record or one event.
- Compare with the monthly expenditure reports. The Office of the Budget’s Status of Appropriations page publishes monthly reports summarizing expenditure activity by agency and line-item appropriation. It provides separate General Fund and Special Funds reports. Keep the fund type and line-item identity with every figure you record.
- Use PennWATCH for a broader view. PennWATCH presents budget, spending, revenue, employee, and performance information. Preserve the reporting period and scope shown beside a figure, such as fiscal-year-to-date spending or a General Fund budget total, when saving a snapshot.
- Check the budget documents for context. The Office of the Budget’s Commonwealth Budget page lists current and past budget documents. Use materials for the fiscal year in question, and keep proposed, enacted, and rebudget figures distinct.
- Request records that are not online. If an Office of the Budget record you need is unavailable online, its Right-to-Know page explains how to submit a written request. Identify the records sought; the page lists OBRightToKnow@pa.gov as a submission channel.
Treasury announced on September 30, 2026, that OpenBookPA had added FY 2025-26 waiver records: approximately 100 letters and corresponding memos. That is an approximate document count, not an exact count of agencies, approved waivers, or dollars. Read the Treasury announcement.
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How to compare the records without overstating what they show
A waiver record is not an expenditure record
The request letter documents a request sent for review. The later memo is the approval-stage record described by Treasury. The Office of the Budget’s monthly reports, by contrast, summarize expenditure activity by agency and line-item appropriation. Taken together, these records can help track a request and investigate subsequent spending, but they do not establish that the waiver caused spending or that the full requested amount was spent.
Match the same fiscal and financial dimensions
Before treating two figures as comparable, check that they refer to the same fiscal year window, agency, fund type, program or appropriation, and measure. A requested amount, appropriation, expenditure, remaining balance, and dashboard total are different kinds of figures. Similar agency names or program descriptions alone do not prove that two records concern the same dollars.
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Keep time basis consistent, too. A monthly or fiscal-year-to-date observation is not directly comparable to a year-end total. Save the date of each report or snapshot along with its stated period and scope, particularly when using PennWATCH or a report page that changes over time.
Describe uncertain matches as associations to investigate
The official pages describe waiver records and expenditure reports separately; they do not specify a universal transaction identifier or guarantee a row-by-row link from every waiver document to later spending. If the agency, fund, appropriation, dates, or amounts do not align clearly, report the relationship as a possible association to investigate—not a confirmed match.
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How to keep a useful tracking log
A spreadsheet can make the paper trail auditable and help prevent unlike figures from being compared. Use one row per document or spending observation, rather than combining a request, memo, and expenditure report in one row. Useful columns include:
- Record type: request letter, 10-Day Memo, Status of Appropriations report, PennWATCH snapshot, or budget document.
- Agency, fiscal year, and observation or document date.
- Program, appropriation, and line-item identifier, exactly as stated in the record.
- Fund type, such as General Fund or Special Funds.
- Amount and measure, with the source’s label and reporting period.
- Request justification or memo conditions, when stated.
- Source URL and notes on whether the match to another record is direct, tentative, or unclear.
Do not fill gaps by guessing. If an amount, identifier, condition, or relationship is absent from a document, mark it as unstated in your own notes rather than inferring it from a similar line item.
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How current are the public records?
The Treasury announcement dated September 30, 2026 establishes that FY 2025-26 files were added then; it does not establish that every earlier fiscal year is covered. Confirm the years shown on the OpenBookPA page before describing the archive’s historical span.
Status of Appropriations reports and PennWATCH snapshots change over time. The Office of the Budget page showed General Fund and Special Funds reports through August 2026 at the time reflected in the cited information; check the official page for the latest available month before quoting it. The Office of the Budget oversees operating-budget planning, agency spending plans and rebudgets, allocations, and expenditure monitoring, but that role does not make any single dashboard a complete audit trail. For background on the wider cycle, its Budget Process in Pennsylvania guide covers planning through audit and evaluation; it is not a substitute for waiver or expenditure records.
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