Science, tech funds for Homeland Security look flat for fiscal 2005
Funding for the Homeland Security Department science and technology directorate is likely to remain level in fiscal 2005, but directorate officials said they have elaborate plans for their first-ever separate budget request.
"What we're doing, figuring that it's going to be roughly level-funded, is looking at how do we maximize the return for level-funded," said David Bolka, director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA). Bolka said public comments by congressional staff and others have given the clear indication that funding will not increase next year.
Bolka spoke with National Journal's Technology Daily reporters this week in a round of interviews that also included John Kubricky, the director of systems engineering; Maureen McCarthy, the department's research and development director; and Charles McQueary, Homeland Security's science and technology undersecretary.
The White House fiscal 2005 budget request will be made to Congress in February, and that budget will be unique from the standpoint of Homeland Security.
"The Department of Homeland Security is going to submit its first real budget in [2005]," McCarthy said. "With that will come from the [science and technology] directorate a series of program-analysis documents that basically outline what the requirements are that need to be done in the major portfolios," such as cyber security and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.
In fiscal 2005, there will not be too much of a shift in spending priorities for the directorate, according to McQueary. "Something over 30 percent of our budget for fiscal year '04 will be spent on biologically related issues," he said.
"Of the $918 million that Congress authorized, some $874 million of that will go towards programs, and about 10 percent of the number will be what I'll call forward-looking research," he added. The difference between the $918 million and the $874 million is the operating budget for personnel. The original White House request for fiscal 2004 was $803 million.
"I think bio at least for the foreseeable future will continue to be a major emphasis for us," McQueary said. "We have emphasis on all [areas], but what we've done is say, 'We ought to put more money on the hardest problem first,' and that's what we're doing."
McCarthy said the fiscal 2004 appropriations law directs the department to plan to consolidate R&D, testing and evaluation elements for fiscal 2005. One portion of the report is due Feb. 15.
The fiscal 2005 budget request will be accompanied by "technology roadmaps," with high-level milestones to be met one, three and five years out, she said.
Bolka said that in fiscal 2005, "it may be that [science and technology] takes on additional execution responsibility or at least oversight responsibility compared to what we have in '04." He added that "the first year where we can actually implement our multiyear planning, programming and budgeting process will be for fiscal '06. We'll start that preparation in January or February."