Agencies across the federal government with unspent on the books during the final weeks of the fiscal year often go into “use it now or lose it” mode in a concerted effort to spend as much as they can before Sept. 30.

The practice was highlighted in a recent inspector general report that faulted the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal grant-writing agency focused on economic development, for awarding a flurry of end-of-the-fiscal-year grants in 2014 in an apparent attempt to spend its leftover funds before Congress examined its budget again.