FY17 Statistical Agency Budget Developments

By Steve Pierson posted 01-08-2016 10:02

  
The FY17 federal budget request is expected to be released February 9, 2016. This blog entry will track FY17 appropriations developmentsfor the federal statistical agencies and so will be updated accordingly. (See update log below.) To receive notifications of updates, follow ASA Science Policy on Twitter: @ASA_SciPol. 

Because this blog entry covers everything from the budget request to the final determination of the budget, it can become quite long. To help with that, I'll try to partition the blog entry:

See also FY17 NIH, NSF and AHRQ Budget Developments.
   

       

FY17

     Agency      FY12     FY13    FY14    FY15     FY16    Request5    % change    House    Senate     Final   % change 
BEA 92.2  89.8  95  96  105.1 110.7 5.3 103** 105.1** 103.3 -1.7
BJS 41.3  41.3  45  41 41  58 41.5 48** 41** 45.5 11.0
BLS 609  577.2  592.2  592.2  609 641 5.3 609** 609** 609 0
BTS1 25  26  26  26  26 26 0 n/a n/a 26 0
Census 9422  859.32 945   1088  1370 1660 21.2 1470** 1518** 1470 7.3
EIA 105  99.5  117  117  122 131 7.4 122** 122*** 122 0
ERS4 85.9  79.1  85.8  85.4  85.4 91 6.6 86.0** 86.8** 86.76 1.6
NASS4 167.8  175.8  170.4  172.4  168.4  177 5.1 168.4** 169.6** 171.2 1.7
NCES3 247  225.9  235.1  232 261  274 5 232** 261** 258.5 -1.0
NCSES 43.3  41.6 47   58.3  58.3 60 2.6 &** &*** 60.0 2.9
NCHS5 159 153.8 155.4  155.4  160.4 160.4 0 160.4** 156** 160.397 0
ORES 29  27.5  26.9 29  25.9  27 4.2 25.0 -3.5
SOI 38.7  34.9 37.1  36.8 37.8  38 0 34.3 -9.3

 

Levels in millions of dollars; Agency abbreviations listed below; NCES is for Statistics and Assessment (not NAGB or SLDS)
Latest Action: *Subcommittee mark-up; **Committee mark-up***Passed the Floor
&Not available because of lack of sufficient detail in summary, bill or conference report; 
NATD (or blank): No Action To Date
1The BTS is funded through the Highway Trust Fund with levels determined by the authorizing committees. 
2The  FY12 and FY13 levels include funds from the Working Capital Fund (WCF), as mandated by Congress. These level may differ than what I report in the "final" column of the FY12 and FY13 columns of other blog entries.
3The NCES budget level includes both statistics and assessment, but not Salary and Earnings. Data is from NCES presentation at 3/7/14 COPAFS presentation.
4ERS and NASS went through budget revisions in FY15. The FY12, FY13, and FY14 levels have been adjusted to be comparable to the FY15 and FY16 levels. The actual FY12, FY13, and FY14 levels for ERS and NASS are $78.2 M, $71.4 M, $78.1 M and $158.6 M, $166.6 M, and $161.2 M, respectively
5The NCHS budget went through an realignment from FY14 to FY15 to account for NCHS having to include business support services provided by the CDC. The comparable FY12, FY13, FY14 and FY15 levels are $138.7 million, 138.7, 140, and 140 respectively. 

FY17 Budget Request Highlights

  • Specific Agencies
    • The Bureau of Economic Analysis increase, according to the Congressional Justification, includes $2.6 million in Inflationary Adjustments to "fund the estimated 2017 Federal pay raise of 1.6 percent, the full year costs of the new positions financed for part of FY 2016, and will provide for inflationary increases for non-labor activities, including service contracts, utilities, and rent." It also includes $3 million for a Regional Economic Dashboard "featuring county-level measurements of GDP." Such geographically granular level detail will help to target local and statement governments as well as companies to allocate limited resources to specific locations to maximize economic benefit and speed development. $1.9 million is also proposed to accelerate and improve the quality of economic indicators by "reducing revisions; improving data value by removing the effects of seasonal trends from more industries; and expand coverage to better measure key sectors of the economy. The result will be a full suite of enhanced macroeconomic indicators, delivered to our end users more quickly and with more precision, with improved scope for the 21st century economy to drive decisions on investment, economic growth, and job creation."  
    • The U.S. Census Bureau 
    • The BLS requested an increase of $32 million help offset its approximately 14% cut in purchasing power since FY10 due to inflation. It also seeks $1.6 million to add an annual supplement to the Current Population Survey; $3 million for the first year of activities for a survey of employer-provided training; and $2.5 million for the Consumer Expenditure Survey development of a supplemental statistical poverty measure. 
    • The ERS increase includes $4 million to update the 2012 National Household Food Purchase and Acquisition Survey; $500,000 to examine differences in demographic characteristics of new farmers and ranchers; and $626,000 to conduct research on conservation practice adoption and drought mitigation by American farmers and ranchers in drought-prone regions.
    • The increase for NASS includes $3 million to survey beginning farmers on unmet needs or barriers to access to USDA programs; $1 million to study modern farm structure to improve data on today’s complex farm business structures and farm characteristics; $1 million to enhance current satellite-based agricultural monitoring to provide crop condition, soil moisture, crop progress, and crop yields;  and $2 million will be used to add questions to existing NASS’ surveys (e.g., for cattle, hogs, and poultry) to establish baseline information.
    • According to DOJ budget information, of the BJS $17 million requested increase, " $6.0 million will support the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) Sample Boost for Subnational Estimates program, which will provide for a permanent increase to the NCVS household sample in up to 22 states to allow for the production of estimates of victimization for states and select metropolitan statistical areas, large cities, and counties. These 22 states account for 79% of the U.S. population and 80% of crime known to police. The requested increase also includes $2.5 million for two indigent defense initiatives: 1) $1.0 million is for a National Survey of Public Defenders, which will provide statistics on public defenders nationwide; and 2) $1.5 million is for a National Public Defenders Reporting Program, which will provide a mechanism to monitor changes in public defenders’ offices workload and progress towards or deviation from American Bar Association standards for quality of indigent defense services. The remaining amount will be used for other research efforts to help resolve criminal justice issues."
    • The EIA requested 7.4% increase, according to the Congressional Justification, is for four programs: (i) Revamp petroleum data and analysis to provide more regional detail (+$1.5M); (ii) Enhance commercial building energy efficiency data (+$4.4M); (iii) Expand international analysis, including Canada-Mexico collaboration and key economies in Asia (+$2.1M); and (iv) Collect transportation energy consumption data (+$1.0M).
    • The requested budget for NCES supports "the collection, analysis, and dissemination of education-related statistics in response to both legislative requirements and to the particular needs of data providers, data users, and education researchers. The increase would provide $7.1 million to re-initiate the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort, $2.5 million to support a study on student loan repayment and defaults, $2.8 million to collect additional data through the Teaching and Learning International Survey, $0.5 million to support statistical work on the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, and $0.5 million to create P–12 and postsecondary information hubs."
    • The NCSES 
    • The budget for NCHS is held flat in the FY17 request.

    Reports on FY17 request:

    Reports on FY17 Congressional Developments:

    Updates (and sources):

    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

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

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