Meeting with OMB - November 7, 95 on 97 Budget To: "A - Division Chief and Staff", "B - Branch Chiefs and Offices", "DC - All District Chiefs" cc: "Wendy E Norton, Program Analyst, Reston, VA" , "Joanne C Taylor, Secretary (Typing), Reston, VA" , "Janet N Arneson, Secretary (Typing), Reston, VA" Subject: Meeting with OMB Date: Thu, 09 Nov 1995 08:11:24 -0500 From: "James G Peters, Acting Program Officer, Reston, VA" On Tuesday (11/7) Bob Hirsch, Cathy Hill and I just finished up our meeting with Janet Irwin, our new OMB examiner for the FY97 Budget. The meeting lasted a little over 2 hours with Bob doing most of the briefing and Cathy and I filling in to provide variety. We concentrated the briefing on our major programs - Coop, NAWQA, streamgaging, etc. - making points about relevance and customer orientation. We spent a few minutes discussing the two new FY97 initiatives for which WRD has the lead - Abandon Mine Lands and Drinking Water. Carla Burzyk, for the Budget Office at DOI, was very supportive of our programs. She made several positive comments about how well received NAWQA has been and how it has formed a foundation for much future work in the Department. Janet's reaction to most of what we had to say was positive. She was especially complementary of our efforts to disseminate information through Internet and to improve our reports process. But she also began to explore possible areas for reduced funding. Although not making any specific recommendations about cuts to our proposed FY97 budget, she asked about program cycles and what happens to funds as projects end. She also asked questions such as whether EPA might be interested in providing funds for the Drinking Water Initiative. In addition to funding questions, she was interested in finding out more about our overhead - both bureau and division - and about expenditure comparisons among differing programs. All in all, I thought the whole hearing went rather well. However, because of the delays and overall uncertainties in the FY96 budget process, OMB will be delayed in provided budget guidance (called "passbacks") to the various government bureaus for FY97. So our discussions with Janet were general and didn't touch on specific funding levels. Those more detailed discussions are further down the road. Wendy and I want to thank all of you in districts and regional offices who helped provide information in a hurry about gaging stations, Coop projects, District funding levels and program distribution, etc. We used it all to good advantage. Incidently, the gage we selected as an example was the Greenbriar River at Alderson, WV with four paying customers, a cornucopia of uses, and an even 100 years of record. It we not a clear choice as we had good examples from eight other districts. I'm convinced every district could have provided several excellent examples. Here at Headquarters, we especially want to thank Linda Meadows, Lorna Kendrix, and Dave Boldt who each spent the better part of a day rushing to gather information for the hearing and came through beautifully! In the year that I've been in this job I've learned that other divisions' program offices have more people than does WRD's program office. I've also learned that Wendy and I can do just fine so long as we have support from those of you who are out there overseeing the work of the division. As far as I can tell, we have not been let down yet. Thanks, all! P.S. Early this afternoon, Wendy and I will be getting the lastest on what's going with bills dealing with another continue resolution and raising the debt ceiling bills. You'll hear the news soon after we do. As you may recall, our current continuing resolution runs our at midnight on Monday (11/13).