[SOA] FW: House Appropriations T-THUD Subcommitee actions

[Angela O'Neal]

Thanks to all who wrote letters in support of NHPRC! The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury, Transportation, HUD and Related Agencies recommended restored NHPRC funding at $5.5 million for grants, $2 million for operating expenses and recommended NARA be given its full administrative request, which includes $289.6 million in operating expenses and $45.5 million for the Electronic Records Archives. However, there is more work to be done. To learn more about the Partnership for the American Historical Record, visit http://www.archivists.org/news/nhprc-FY2007-Partnership.asp <http://www.archivists.org/news/nhprc-FY2007-Partnership.asp>  
 
What could/should SOA do to support this initiative? Please feel free to discuss your ideas on the list. 
 
Angela

________________________________

From: Pari Swift
Sent: Thu 6/8/2006 7:09 AM
To: Angela O'Neal
Subject: FW: House Appropriations T-THUD Subcommitee actions



Angela, 

Can you pass this on to the SOA listserv?  I don't believe that I'm on it. 

Thanks! 

Pari 

-----Original Message----- 
From: - COSHRC-L - Council of State Historical Records Coordinators 
[mailto:COSHRC-L at LISTS.MAINE.EDU]On Behalf Of Kathleen Roe 
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 4:15 PM 
To: COSHRC-L at LISTS.MAINE.EDU 
Subject: House Appropriations T-THUD Subcommitee actions 


The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury, Transportation, HUD and Related Agencies has released the information on the deliberations on last week'sKathle budget appropriations for NARA and NHPRC. Here's the quick summary of what they did:

Recommended restored NHPRC funding at $5.5 million for grants, $2 million for operating expenses. 

Recommended NARA be given its full administrative request, which includes $289.6 million in operating expenses and $45.5 million for the Electronic Records Archives.

Now the commentary, which is entirely my own and not the responsibility of my employing agency, CoSA, SAA, or any other professional or non-professional organization to which I belong:

The good news is that funding was recommended for NHPRC, and does not represent a loss from the past year's figure (as long as this stands through the Senate and conference committee). The drawback is that there is not additional funding beyond last year's amount. We need to think about what position we want to take, therefore, relating to the national initiative, the Partnership for the American Historical Record.The CoSA Board has not come to any epiphanies on this, nor have we discussed it with NARA or NHPRC. None of us expected this to be an easy win, and I believe most if not all of us continue to be committed to work on this. If you have comments or suggestions, I would be delighted to hear them. 

While the NARA numbers "look" good, it is in fact a level budget, and as we all know, that means some losses because there are increases that need to be accommodated in any budget.I expect we will hear more from the National Archives on this as the budget process continues.

My appreciation to all those of you who've gotten people to write, who've made visits to congressional members, and who will endure my requests for help again when this gets to the Senate committees. We are fortunate to be disappointed that we did not get "more", rather than an empty plate. There are difficult budget times, but we and our archival colleagues have "held our own", which is not a small feat. And we've continued to learn and strengthen our capacities in ways that will be valuable for many years to come.

There will be much to discuss at our annual meeting in Washington.Please feel free to contact me, or any of the CoSA Board members if you have thoughts or want to discuss this. 

Kathleen 


Kathleen Roe 
Chair, CoSA Government Relations Committee