Fy15 Operating Budget: Fill & Download for Free

As with all things concerning government budget and employment, this isn’t a straightforward question to answer.First, let’s just go right into the money[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] (note: the government’s budget calendar, ie, the “Fiscal Year,” goes from October 1 to September 30, and is named for the year in which it ends):What you see is that, with the exception of FY14, Congress has usually topped up the CDC over the President’s Budget Request[10] [11] ; and with the exception of FY18, in recent years, Congress has resisted cutting the CDC’s budget at all.FY15 was the year of the Ebola outbreak, and so you might be really curious (as I was) why there was such a deep cut requested that year and a pretty tame budget increase given the outbreak. As it happens, what happened that year has follow-on effects to the present controversy.The requested cuts to CDC’s budget authority that year reflected the Obama Administration’s expectations that health reform would eliminate the need for certain immunization, chronic disease prevention, and health promotion programs.Congress responded with, “lol, don’t be stupid,” and topped up the CDC from the previous fiscal year.And then the Ebola outbreak happened, and both the Administration and Congress recognized that the CDC was not going to be able to respond with the available resources. In December 2014, it passed a supplemental appropriation “to remain available until September 30, 2019,[12] “to combat Ebola and promote global health security generally.”Now, hold that thought, and follow me to the next charts:While the Obama Administration proposed cuts in CDC’s budget authority elsewhere, FY15 was the first budget year to reflect its commitment to support the international Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA)[13] , and accordingly proposed a significant increase in the CDC’s (and other agencies’[14] ) global health programs.Congress initially said, “lol, no,” and, as can be observed, even made a cut below the prior year’s enacted level.This brings us back to the supplemental, emergency appropriation and requests under the Trump Administration.Back in FY15, the CDC was given a total of $1.7 billion in supplemental appropriations to combat Ebola, $597 million of which was specifically earmarked “to support national public health institutes and global health security” - which, if you follow the report in Footnote 13, became the CDC’s authority to support the GHSA (Footnote 39 of the report - yes, I have now reached peak footnoting). As noted, that money was due to expire in FY19.As observed, President Trump’s first budget (FY18) - which triggered the current political footballing - proposed a deep cut to global health programs[15] , to which Congress said, “lol, no,” and even topped it up over the previous year. This brings us to FY19.With the GHSA money due to expire, the CDC tried to do what any agency would do after having baked a long-term supplemental appropriation into its operations: keep it.CDC’s FY 2019 request for Global Disease Detection and Other Programs of $108,762,000 includes an increase of $50,957,236 above the FY 2018 Annualized CR level to protect Americans by upgrading public health capacity in countries at risk for uncontrolled outbreaks of infectious diseases. Supporting other nations' ability to identify and contain outbreaks at their source will save lives and money. Better protection from these threats, finding and stopping them at their borders, will protect the health of all Americans. This funding level maintains the level of activities proposed in the FY 2018 Budget, with $58,762,000 (requested with two-year availability) to support activities under the Global Health Security Agenda. These new resources will provide bridge funding for CDC to continue work towards the goals of GHSA. To date, CDC's GHSA activities have been supported by supplemental funding provided in FY 2015 that is set to expire at the end of FY 2019. This request will help transition funding for CDC's GHSA activities from supplemental to base appropriations. These funds will allow CDC to continue their commitments to GHSA as planned through the end of FY 2019, and the two-year availability of these resources means that they can be used into FY 2020.To which Congress said, “Hey, that’s a pretty good idea,” while also laughing off the proposed cuts to global HIV/AIDS prevention[16] and other immunization programs (which the Administration has since tried to cut every year); and that funding became a part of base appropriations.So while the Trump Administration succeeded in bringing GHSA money in permanently, thereby topping up the global health programs account, it has continued to request funding for Global Disease Detection and Emergency Response at levels below enactment, with Congress pushing back.Moreover, while GHSA does contribute to building other nations’ ability to detect diseases - thereby improving global surveillance overall - the surveillance stream is just one of several capability-building programs funded through GHSA. As such, the amount obligated doesn’t directly translate to a targeted disease detection and response program.Now, some of you might have noticed that the discussion about budgeting is a bit tangential to the thrust of the question: downsizing and/or dismantling, which tends to concern employment. Fortunately, I have a chart for that, too:It only goes to March 2019 because that’s the latest release of Fedscope’s data; however, the trends are clear. Employment picked up after FY15 and through to the early part of FY17 before declining. But what’s odd about the decline in employment is that the CDC’s budget authority has otherwise increased.Looking at the change in major occupations……while the bulk are down from their highs at the start of the Trump Administration, many are at or near-enough the levels that they were just prior to the transition; so there’s not as much evidence of “gutting” as much as, perhaps, attrition. However, regarding disease detection and responsiveness, the following causes some worry:And as much has been made of the reduction in overseas staff, while the total number of CDC staff assigned overseas has declined……it hasn’t been a massive “gutting.” However, looking at where the CDC’s presence remains……(#mapswithoutnz) and it becomes clear that the primary overseas mission of the CDC remains combating HIV/AIDS in subsaharan Africa rather than capacity building or disease detection broadly. There are more CDC personnel detailed to the WHO headquarters in Switzerland (13) than China (5) and India (6) combined.I think the short story here is that while the Trump Administration has repeatedly sought to make deep cuts to the CDC’s budget, to include its global health programs, Congress has not entertained them. However, Congress’ support for programs to build other nations’ disease surveillance, prevention and response capabilities has not directly translated to building the CDC’s own overseas capacity in that regard.Moreover, while the decline in the CDC’s workforce might very well be due to natural attrition, it then seems to be concerning that the workforce is either not being replaced much less being staffed to meet the increase in its budget authority - although any concerns about staffing or management within the agency don’t seem to be manifesting in overall job satisfaction[17] .Short answer: It’s a complicated picture arising out of the push-and-pull between the Administration and Congress.Footnotes[1] Budget | Funding | CDC[2] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2014/fy-2014-budget-request-summary.pdf[3] Page on cdc.gov[4] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2016/fy-2016-overview-and-detail-table.pdf[5] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2017/fy-2017-cdc-budget-overview.pdf[6] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2018/fy-2018-cdc-budget-overview.pdf[7] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2019/fy-2019-detail-table.pdf[8] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2020/fy-2020-detail-table.pdf[9] https://www.cdc.gov/budget/documents/fy2021/FY-2021-CDC-Budget-Detail.pdf[10] Did Trump try to cut the CDC's budget as Democrats claim?: ANALYSIS [11] President’s budget would hinder US public health progress: Huge cuts proposed[12] https://www.congress.gov/113/plaws/publ235/PLAW-113publ235.pdf[13] FACT SHEET: Global Health Security Agenda: Getting Ahead of the Curve on Epidemic Threats[14] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R43115.pdf[15] Trump Proposes Deep Cuts In Detecting Disease Outbreaks Worldwide[16] Impact of Federal HIV Budget Cuts - NMAC[17] Best Places to Work in the Federal Government

The problem with crowdsourcing weather data collection is in validating the data. There are thousands of private weather stations out there. Most of them are improperly installed, and many of them have sensors that are barely better than random number generators. The data obtained from these sources is of such poor quality as to be essentially useless. NOAA puts a great deal of effort into validating the sensors and methodology it uses to collect data; it is unlikely that a crowdsourced effort could even hope to match that level of rigor.NOAA spends $1.3 billion on technology per year, much of which goes to the high performance computing facilities that are used to run weather model calculations. The two primary supercomputers in operational service are rated at around 250 teraflops each. NOAA is in the process of upgrading them to 776 teraflops (each) and plans to increase capacity to 5 petaflops by October 2015. (By comparison, a typical home PC will rate about 50 gigaflops. A top end gaming machine might pull down a whole teraflop, by using the GPU as a coprocessor.)NOAA announces significant investment in next generation of supercomputersWhile ground observations are an important part of the data set that goes into weather forecasting, there are three very important sources that are going to be hard to crowdsource: weather radar, satellite imagery, and radiosondes (weather balloons). You simply are not going to be able to make good forecasts without the information that these three data sources provide.In short, you aren't going to be able to match, or even come close, what NOAA is providing. NOAA's FY15 budget of $5.5 billion works out to about $18 per person per year. Your tax dollars, hard at work.

Indian Railways’ operating ratio to cross 100 due to pay panel payoutWith the finance ministry expressing its inability to fund the railways’ expenditure on the Seventh Pay Commission, the transporter’s operating ratio — operating expenses as a proportion of revenues — is likely to exceed 100 in FY17. In one stroke, that wipes out the gains made by the railways in FY16, and leaves its finances looking quite precarious, much like they did after the Sixth Pay Commission.Thanks to a sluggish economy, revenue growth in FY16, in any case, is going to be much lower than the budgeted 15%. Till December, the railways only generated Rs 75,222 crore of freight versus its internal target of Rs 81,073 crore. On the passenger front, it managed to generate Rs 26,031 crore up to October, 10% below its internal target of Rs 29,016 crore. Given the best months for freight traffic are December and January, the ministry is looking at a 9-10% growth for the year, taking the likely revenue to around R1.74 lakh crore compared to the budgeted R1.84 lakh crore.What will help, though, is the sharp slowing in expenses this year, mostly due to the fall in prices of diesel as well as the new power purchase agreements that the railways has entered into to replace existing ones. Compared to an 11% growth budgeted for in FY16, railway ministry sources are confident growth in expenses can be contained at around 4-5%. In which case, the operating ratio for FY16 may not be very different from that budgeted for.The railways’ real challenge will come in FY17. While the diesel bonanza is near and end, more power purchase agreements are expected to lower fuel costs. While railway minister Suresh Prabhu has asked the Railway Board to look at efficiency gains that could keep growth in FY17 expenses flat, or very low, even this will not be enough. Even if other expenses remain flat — a very big assumption — the railways will have to spend an additional Rs 40,000 crore due to the pay commission in FY17, after taking into account the arrears from January to March 2016.If zero growth in expenses — apart from those relating to the pay panel — is assumed for FY17, that still takes the railways’ operating expenses for the year to Rs 1.94 lakh crore.Given a revenue growth in FY17 that is similar to that in FY16, the railways will earn Rs 1.89 lakh crore and has to finance expenses worth Rs 1.94 lakh crore — an operating ratio of over 100%.If the railway minister Prabhu is able to get the Railways Regulatory Authority Bill through and set up a regulator in time, he could try and get the finance ministry to foot some of the Rs 30,000 crore he spends each year on subsidies in the passenger segment.Getting more non-fare revenue — from advertising, for instance — is another priority area for the railways, though the progress on this has been slow.Rail Budget 2016: Suresh Prabhu on track to boost Indian Railways’ capex by nearly 50%Savings of some Rs 5,000-6,000 crore are likely on the energy bill (of Rs 30,000 crore). The total expenditure would therefore be around Rs 1.57 lakh crore as against the budgeted Rs 1.63 lakh crore. Despite the sharply lower-than-budgeted growth until January-end in both freight and passenger receipts, the shortfall in the railways’ gross traffic receipts won’t be more than Rs 10,000 crore. And then there are some gains likely from concessions funded by the Union Budget.The last Rail Budget had projected the OR to improve to 88.5% in FY16 from 91.8% in FY15 and had set ambitious target to raise capex (including public-private partnership ventures) by 52% to over Rs 1 lakh crore, pinning hopes on a larger-than-usual reliance on extra-budget resources. Though the capex momentum remained far below the budgeted pace for most of the year, it has lately picked up: Capital expenditure until December end was Rs 58,000 crore, up 45% over the same period in the previous year. PTI has reported that the Plan outlay for FY17 could be Rs 1.25 lakh crore.I think Indian railways are doing Quite Impressive in now a days.Jai Hind. (You know why i'm starting this quoting for all my resent answers bcs of this bullshit JNU Protest........)..................Jai Hind.......Vande Mataram.......Proud to be an Indian.............Thanks for A2A Mamta Chatterjee