FY14 Statistical Agencies Budget Request

By Steve Pierson posted 04-10-2013 11:46

  
The Obama Administration announced this morning its budget request for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14), which begins October 1. The table below has the request number for 13 federal statistical agencies along with their FY10, FY11, FY12, and FY13† budgets.

I'll be posting details on the requests as I get them.  
       Agency   FY10     FY11     FY12     FY13†   FY14 Request     % change  
BEA $93M 93 92.2 89.8 100  11.4% 
BJS 60 60 41.3 41.3 53  28% 
BLS 611 610 609  577 610  6%
BTS 27 27 26 26  26  0% 
Census 7225 11521 942.31  859.31 983  14% 
EIA 111 96 105 99.5  117 18% 
ERS 82 81.8 77.7  71.4 79  10% 
NASS 162 156.4 158.6 166  160  -4% 
NCES 247 247 247 234  2572   10%
NCSES 41 42 43.3 41.6 48.7  17% 
NCHS 139 138.7 138.4  131 160  22% 
ORES 28 29 29 27.5  30  9% 
SOI 39 38.7  33.13 353  6% 
Levels in millions of dollars; Agency abbreviations listed below
Source: FY2014 Analytical Perspectives, "Strengthening Federal Statistics" Chapter, p. 348.
†The FY13 levels are not confirmed.
 1The Census budgets for FY11, FY12 and FY13 include funds from the Working Capitol Fund.
2It appears NCES has an accounting change. The Analytical Perspective table lists the FY14 budget for Statistics and Assessment as $265 million. It also the FY12 level as $255 million, which is $8 million above my FY12 figure. To recalibrate, I subtracted $8 million from the FY14 request level.
3SOI underwent a realignment within its parent organization RAS in FY12 that included a transfer of 24 FTE’s to RAS, which accounts for a large part of the decrease between FY12 and FY13.

The FY14 Request for the U.S. Census Bureau (p. 35) includes an increase of nearly $140 million for the final year of the research and testing phase of the 2020 Decennial Census. The request also ramps down funding on the 2010 Decennial Census and the 2012 Economic Census and reduces funding for Geographic Support.  

The requested increase for BEA (p. 47) includes a major program called, Measurement of “Build it here, Sell it everywhere,” to improve measures of foreign direct investment. The request also proposing the elimintation of the Advance GDP by Industry program. 

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April 12 Update:
According to the budget justification the CDC provided to Congress (p. 12), the requested 22% increase for NCHS allows NCHS  "to expand vital registration by purchasing 12 months of birth and death data from the vital registration jurisdictions and to fully implement electronic birth records in the two remaining jurisdictions. This budget request prioritizes and supports the expansion of vital statistics to gradually phase in electronic death records in the 21 remaining jurisdictions over four years. The increase will also support development and implementation of new sample designs for population-based surveys following the 2010 Census, as well as improvements and expansions of data collection methods. This investment will expand [NCHS]’s capability to monitor key health indicators at the national, state, and community level."
 
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April 15 Update:
According to the USDA FY 2014 Budget Summary and Annual Performance Plan (p. 99), the ERS request "continues to fund ERS’ core program of research, data analysis, and market outlook, and includes a new initiative to spur research innovations that will improve policy effectiveness. The 2014 Budget includes $2.5 million for improving policy effectiveness, which is offset by reductions in lower priority programs. This initiative will focus on the application of behavioral economics and the statistical use of administrative data to address critical information gaps that hinder program and policy effectiveness. For example, better understanding the decisions made by farmers to participate in risk management programs and the nutrition choices by consumers will improve USDA’s ability to meet rural America’s needs and measure performance accurately. Results of the initiative will provide science-based evidence that informs decision making by policy makers and program managers at USDA, and across the Federal and State Governments."

For NASS (same source as above, p. 100), its request includes $42.3 million for the Census of Agriculture and $1.3 million "in new funding to maintain production of four, priority Current Industrial Reports (CIR) out of approximately forty-seven reports that were formerly produced by the U.S. Census Bureau. These reports are the only source of critical information to support estimation requirements for USDA agencies, including NASS and the Census of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, World Agricultural Outlook Board, and the Office of the Chief Economist. The reports are also used by private industry to monitor the effect of international trade on domestic production, evaluate the relationship between company and industry performances, analyze markets and current business conditions, and plan future operations."

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April 17 update:
According to the DOE FY14 budget highlights document (p. 52), the 18% increase for EIA "maintains its core energy information program and enables EIA to do the following:
  • Complete the 2012 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey, including release of data that provide U.S. benchmarks used to inform investments in new technologies, performance labeling, and energy management practices.
  • Launch the 2014 Residential Energy Consumption Survey, which collects information from a nationally representative sample of housing units, including data on energy characteristics of homes, usage patterns, and household demographics.
  • Implement National Academy of Sciences recommendations to improve the processes that underlie these complex, multi-year consumption surveys.
  • Modernize and streamline data collection processes across its energy supply surveys, including significant upgrades to the systems and processes used to produce the weekly market-moving natural gas and petroleum product inventory reports.
  • Enhance the ability to monitor, forecast, and report on international energy developments.
  • Upgrade forecasting capabilities by modernizing the National Energy Modeling System.
  • Improve and expand customer access to EIA statistics and analyses via its website."
According to the Department of Labor FY14 Budget Request Summary, the 2014 BLS request includes funding to add one annual supplement to the Current Population Survey ($1,577,000) and the elimination of the Measure Green Jobs initiative ($8,100,000) and the Mass Layoff Statistics program ($1,793,000). The request also includes funding for the Consumer Expenditure (CE) Surveys program to support the Census Bureau in its development of a supplemental statistical poverty measure using CE data. (which is an increase of $2,500,000). The request also eliminates the International Labor Comparisons (ILC) program ($1,957,000). The FY 2014 request includes an initiative to consolidate IT helpdesk and server administration resources, which will yield a savings of $1,000,000.

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April 29 Addition:
According to DOJ FY14 OJP Congressional Justification, the $52.9 million FY 14 request for BJS would be allocated as follows:
  • Recidivism, Reentry and Special Projects (Approx.  $1.2M). 
  • The Prosecution and Adjudication Statistical Projects (Approx. $1.0M). 
  • Criminal Justice Data Improvements Program (Approx. $3.0M). 
  • Victimization Statistics projects (Approx. $39.0M). 
  • Law Enforcement Statistics (Approx. $1.0M).
  • Research, Evaluation, and Statistics (Approx. $5.0M) 
  • Statistical information statistical information publication and dissemination activities  (Approx. $1.0M). 
  •  Federal Statistical Programs, Activities, and Initiatives. (Approx. $1.0M). 

According to an NSF SBE Document, the 15.5% increase for NCSES would allow NCSES to "close a growing gap in its national estimates for research and development funding and performance by developing and implementing a survey of nonprofit organizations. It will also expand the scope of administrative records sources being considered to augment the full suite of its existing surveys and proceed with a pilot project establishing collaboration between several federal agencies to assess the feasibility of using agencies’ administrative records to measure research and development activity. NCSES will test new measures in the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR) that address data gaps related to understanding the relationship between federal support for graduate education and outcomes, such as employment; increase the frequency of the Survey of State Government Research and Development; and develop and test effective data collection strategies for the nascent Microbusiness Innovation Science and Technology Survey (MIST)."

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Like in past years, I will also be tracking the FY14 budget developments. Watch the second bullet at the ASA Support of Federal Statistical System webpage.

See other ASA Science Policy blog entries. For ASA science policy updates, follow @ASA_SciPol on Twitter.

See also:

Statistical Agency abbreviations

BEA Bureau of Economic Analysis
BJS Bureau of Justice Statistics
BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics
BTS Bureau of Transportation Statistics
ERS Economic Research Service
EIA Energy Information Administration
NASS National Agricultural Statistics Service
NCES National Center for Education Statistics
NCHS National Center for Health Statistics
NCSES National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, NSF
ORES Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, SSA
SOI Statistics of Income Division, IRS
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