White House Details Sequester Pain to Federal Agencies
The FCC should plan to slice more than $17 million in salaries and expenses and $200,000 from its spectrum auction program account in fiscal year 2013, according to a recent White House report. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) detailed exactly how the $85 billion in cuts would affect federal agencies following the president’s release of the sequestration order late Friday. Other agencies that oversee telecom and technology issues should expect to reduce their 2013 fiscal year expenditures by 5 percent, the report said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
OMB said the cuts will be “deeply destructive” to national security, domestic investments, and core government functions, said a letter signed by OMB Deputy Director for Management Jeffrey Zients. “The Joint Committee sequestration is a blunt and indiscriminate instrument. It was never intended to be implemented and does not represent a responsible way for our nation to achieve deficit reduction,” Zients wrote. “The administration continues to stand ready to work with the Congress to enact balanced deficit reduction legislation that replaces sequestration and puts the nation on a sound long-term fiscal path.”
The 5 percent cuts, mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 and incorporating several changes made by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, equate to nearly 9 percent cuts for all non-exempt, non-defense programs because they must be achieved over 7 months rather than 12, the report said. Sequestration must be applied equally at the program, project, and activity level, but need not be applied equally to each type of budgetary resource within a budget account, the report said. The cuts will place many federal employees in administrative furlough, which may not begin until April due to a policy that requires agencies to bargain with federal unions at least 30 days prior to implementing any furloughs. Each agency has discretion to decide which employees will be furloughed.
The sequester will force NTIA to cut $5.4 million from its public safety trust fund, $3.52 million from its state and local implementation fund and $2.3 million from the agency’s FY2013 salaries and expenses. RUS will be forced to cut $1.9 million from its distance learning, telemedicine, and broadband program, and $1.85 million from its rural electrification and telecommunications loans program account. The sequester will force the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cut $22.3 million and the Broadcasting Board of Governors will have to cut $37.5 million from its international broadcasting operations and $350,000 from its broadcasting capital improvements fund.
Federal cybersecurity initiatives will undergo similar cuts under sequester, the OMB report said. The Department of Homeland Security will be forced to cut $91 million from its infrastructure protection and information security services, as well as $3 million from its national protection and programs directorate. The sequester will force the Department of Transportation to cut $500,000 from its funding for cybersecurity initiatives.
The Federal Trade Commission will cut $15.7 million and the U.S. Patent and Trademark office will trim $147.55 million from their FY2013 budgets for salaries and expenses. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will cut $29 million from its FY2013 budget for scientific and technical research and services. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy will undergo a $250,000 cut.