News and updates

Last night, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress to give a preview of his first budget request. While it was short on actual numbers, the President did pledge to seek cuts in certain defense, farm, and education programs and root out waste in government spending. He further said that his administration has already identified nearly $2 trillion dollars in savings over the next decade through cuts to programs that they consider wasteful and ineffective. Obama is expected to release an outline of his first budget request on Thursday.  We expect that this will provide broad budget numbers at the agency level but not a lot of detail for individual programs. It will, however, provide us with a glimpse of how the administration will begin to increase — or decrease — funding for certain programs. The Office of Federal Relations will look for those items that might affect the UW, including those affecting education and research programs.

The $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill may pass the House of Representatives as early as this Wednesday and in the following few days in the Senate. The higher education community was successful in its advocacy for increases in some agencies and programs of critical importance. Additionally, UW was successful in securing support for congressionally directed appropriations for high priority campus projects in the FY09 cycle. The government is faced with a March 6th deadline to complete work on the omnibus, as the continuing resolution — that is currently funding the government at FY2008 levels — expires at that point. Continue reading “FY09 Omnibus Figures Available for Key Higher Education Accounts”