The White House and congressional leaders have agreed on a two-year (FY20-21) budget framework, which will prevent a return of the deep cuts associated with the sequestration policy that was first implemented by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The deal to raise spending caps by $321 billion over two years will accompany a suspension of the debt limit until July 2021. Federal discretionary spending over the two-year period will increase by 4% as opposed to being cut by roughly 10%. Research and student aid line-items would fare relatively well with the new higher spending caps. The agreement must still pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by President Trump. The bill is likely but not certain to succeed.

Should the new budget agreement become law, the Senate would be able to begin moving their spending bills for the coming fiscal year, which starts on October 1. The House has largely utilized artificial spending caps to create and approve its versions of the FY20 spending bills. 

Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 

Over the last few weeks, FSU Federal Relations welcomed faculty/staff to DC for funding and policy meetings on Capitol Hill. Members of the FSU community visiting the Hill included: Director of Financial Aid Somnath Chatterjee, Drs. Barbara Foorman and John Hughes who lead the FSU-based Regional Education Lab Southeast, Dr. Teng Ma from the Department of Medical and Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Richard Liang who heads the High Performance Materials Institute, and Vice President for Research Dr. Gary Ostrander.

Alongside counterparts from other Florida institutions, Mr. Chatterjee briefed the congressional delegation of the significant number of students who rely on Federal student aid programs. The programs of interest include the Pell Grant, Federal Work Study and the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant. During the 2017-2018 school year, 21,041 FSU students received support from the Federal student aid programs.

Drs. Foorman and Hughes shared their support for the semi-independent Institute for Education Sciences. IES funding allows for the development of a research base on the effectiveness of educational interventions, which school districts can use to improve outcomes. FSU serves as host for the IES-funded Regional Education Laboratory Southeast. For the FY20 appropriations process, the higher education community is recommending a budget of $67 million for IES, which would restore the nearly ten percent decrease in purchasing power experienced since FY 2011. 

Dr. Ma spoke of stroke treatments that are on the horizon as a result of support from the National Institutes of Health. He joined colleagues from across the biomedical research community to advocate for a $2.5 billion increase for NIH in FY20. The increase would fund promising proposals and result in 40,000 new jobs.

Please contact the Office of Federal Relations if you would like to engage the congressional delegation, in your FSU role, on a funding or policy item.