The Obama Administration has announced that its FY 2015 budget request to Congress will come out on March 4. By law the annual budget request is supposed to go to Congress by the first Monday in February. But instead this will be the second consecutive year of a delay for the request.  

The Congressional appropriations process starts after the budget submission.  But even with this late submission in March, the process may move quickly because the budget agreement reached in late 2013 set discretionary spending caps for two fiscal years — 2014 and 2015 — rather than the usual one.  This in theory will avoid a repeat of deadlocked or delayed budget negotiations, allowing Congress to complete the appropriations bills for next year in a more timely fashion.  Appropriations are supposed to be, but seldom are, in place by October 1.