Sequestration-related letters
03.04.13: Sequestration for Fiscal Year 2013
As you are likely aware, in accordance with the Budget Control Act of 2011, a series of spending cuts, called sequestration, will cancel approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the Federal government for the remainder of the Federal fiscal year. As a partner with you in accomplishing the Administration for Community Living’s mission, we are writing to provide you with information about what this reduction means for the funds provided to your organization.
At this time, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Administration for Community Living are taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but based on our initial analysis, it is possible that your grants or cooperative agreement awards may be affected. Examples of this impact could include: not issuing continuation awards, or negotiating a reduction in the scope of your awards to meet the constraints imposed by sequestration. Additionally, plans for new grants or cooperative agreements may be re-scoped, delayed, or canceled depending on the nature of the work and the availability of resources.
To the extent that fiscal year 2013 funds for your grants or cooperative agreements are affected due to these budget cuts, you will be contacted by the appropriate Grant Management Officer with additional details at a later point. Please note that these budget cuts do not affect grant or cooperative agreement awards made with fiscal year 2012 resources.
Thank you for your continued partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Administration for Community Living, and for your cooperation as we work together to manage these circumstances.
Office of Grants Management
DHHS Administration for Community Living
Dear FEMA Grantee:
In August 2011, Congress passed the Budget Control Act of 2011 (Public Law 112-25) to limit federal spending and reduce our national debt. To enforce annual spending limits, that law requires across-the-board funding reductions to almost every federal program, project, and activity through a process called "sequestration."
As a consequence, all federal agencies, including FEMA, will have to implement steep funding cuts, beginning in the current fiscal year. Leadership throughout FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security have been working hard to determine how we might best mitigate the impact of possible sequestration budget reductions on our state, local, tribal, territorial, non-profit and private sector partners.
Nonetheless, the sequestration order issued on March 1, 2013 will result in FEMA's current Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 funding levels being reduced by approximately 5%. This will result in a reduction to FEMA's State and Local grant funding levels of approximately $104 million.
The sequestration reductions will affect FY 2013 funding levels for all GPD grants, subject to FEMA's final FY 2013 appropriation. Sequestration will not affect grants or cooperative agreements awarded in previous fiscal years.
We recognize the hardships that sequestration is likely to cause and thank you for your cooperation as we work together to manage these unfortunate circumstances. We value the important work that you do and appreciate your dedication to the security and resilience of the Nation. As always, your thoughts, questions and concerns are welcome.
Sincerely,
David J. Kaufman
Acting Assistant Administrator
Grant Programs Directorate
03.04.13: Important Information regarding your HRSA grant
Dear Grantee:
As you are likely aware, in accordance with the Budget Control Act of 2011, a series of spending cuts, called sequestration, will cancel approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the Federal government for the remainder of the Federal fiscal year. As a partner with HRSA, we are writing to provide you with information about what this reduction means for the funds provided to your organization.
At this time, the Department of Health and Human Services and HRSA are taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but based on our initial analysis, it is possible that your grants or cooperative agreement awards may be affected. Examples of this impact could include: not issuing continuation awards, not awarding incremental funds on multi-year awards, or negotiating a reduction in the scope of your awards to meet the constraints imposed by sequestration. Additionally, plans for new grants may be re-scoped, delayed, or canceled depending on the nature of the work and the availability of resources.
To the extent that your grants or cooperative agreement awards are affected due to these budget cuts, you will be contacted by the appropriate Grant Management and/or Project Officer with additional details at a later point.
Thank you for your continued partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services and HRSA and for your cooperation as we work together to manage these circumstances.
Michael J. Nelson
Associate Administrator
Office of Federal Assistance Management
Health Resources and Services Administration
NCI
05.07.13: Memo to the NCI Community
To the NCI-supported scientific community:
A message that I sent to you in March (appended below) outlined the general approach that the NCI planned to take to absorb an anticipated reduction in our FY2013 budget. At that time, I promised to provide more information once we received firm figures for the remainder of this fiscal year. Now that the Congress and the Administration (including the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the NIH Director’s Office) have weighed in, the NCI has learned that our budget for the current year will be approximately $4.78 billion, $293 million less than in FY2012, a reduction of 5.8%. This decrease is attributable in large part to sequestration (a 5.1% decline), with the remainder due to further reductions mandated by DHHS to support various Departmental obligations.
As in the strategy I outlined previously, we have responded to this situation by reducing funds for virtually all sectors of the NCI portfolio in order to limit the impact of the reductions on the most vulnerable part of the budget---our capacity to issue new and competing research project grants. This is not easily accomplished. Over 20% of our budget is comprised of fixed costs---such as salaries for NCI personnel, rents, utilities, Clinical Center expenses, etc.---and cannot be reduced. (And we have also decided not to reduce salaries for NIH trainees.) That means that the other components of the budget must absorb the entire reduction, lowering their allocations by an average of over 7%. To do this, we have had to make appreciable reductions in ongoing (non-competing) grants (about 6%), centers and other research programs (6.5%), and research and development contracts (8.5%). Similar or even larger reductions were applied to the discretionary parts of other budgets, such as research management and support and the intramural program, in both of which salaries constitute most of the expense.
As a result of these decisions, we can now expect to fund slightly more than 1000 new and competing grants---less, but only a bit fewer, than the nearly 1100 funded in each of the past couple of years. The already low success rates for grant applicants (recently in the range of 13 to 14%) may decline a small degree, but we believe that we have achieved a fair compromise, given the size of the budget reduction overall, our commitments to current grantees, and our several fixed costs. As in past years, a fuller account of the FY2013 budget will soon be posted on the NCI web site to provide additional details.
Needless to say, no one at the NCI is happy about these reductions, but they are now unavoidable for FY2013. I believe that our goals should be to manage as best we can within these limits, to use the nearly $4.8 billion at our disposal as effectively as possible to make progress against cancer, and to look for opportunities to improve our fortunes in the next year or two. Although I recognize that there may be resistance in Congress to returning our budget to FY2012 levels or better, it is encouraging to note that the President has proposed a significant increase above FY2012 for the FY2014 NIH budget.
Those of us who must govern the NCI in this difficult year thank you for your attention to this matter and ask for your support of our efforts to cope with it.
Harold Varmus
Director, NCI
03.07.13: Sequestration Info for the NCI-supported scientific community
As you have heard and read, the Budget Control Act (aka “sequestration”) has gone into effect as of March 1st. All components of the NIH, including the NCI, are working diligently to assess the impact of this unprecedented budget reduction on our ability to manage the current research portfolio and to continue to award new and competing grants in this fiscal year. Knowing the anxiety that we all share about these developments, I am writing to report to you on our objectives, progress, and prognostications, even though a full account is not yet possible.
First, I must emphasize that we cannot provide a definitive and detailed account of our plans for the year at this time because we are currently operating on a so-called Continuing Resolution that extends only through March 27th. Funding for the rest of the fiscal year (FY2013) will depend on Congress’s ability to propose and pass appropriations measures that carry us through September 30th. This could be done through another Continuing Resolution, through a more typical appropriations bill, or through some kind of omnibus bill that bundles measures affecting many agencies.
At present, our Continuing Resolution provides funds to the NCI for the first six months of this fiscal year (October 1 - March 27) at 0.62% above last year’s level for the same time period. Under these circumstances, as in many other years that have begun with Continuing Resolutions, we are paying both new and continuing grants at about 90% of expected levels---a conservative measure that acknowledges our uncertainty about the rest of the year. Even in this especially difficult year, we anticipate increasing the funding level for those awards (by an amount still to be ascertained) once our funding for the full year has been determined. As I have described in earlier messages and as is detailed on the NCI’s web site (https://deaissl.nci.nih.gov/roller/ncidea/entry/2012_funding_patterns), we continue to evaluate our applications for new and renewing grants by a careful combination of peer and programmatic review. I urge you to visit the site to see the outcomes of that process for the past two years.
One of the guiding principles in our plans for adapting to sequestration is to maintain the number of competitive awards ---new grants and renewals---at levels similar to that achieved in the past few years (over 1000 grants, with success rates of 13 to 14 percent). These are, of course, fewer grants than we would like to make, and the grant sizes are often smaller than they should be. Moreover, to achieve this goal, we need to make reductions, modest but significant, in virtually all of our extra- and intramural programs, including non-competitive (type 5) grant renewals, cancer centers, and research contracts. In addition, we do not expect to reduce salaries, place employees on furlough, or take other drastic steps in making these adjustments. Yet in the plan we envision, we hope to protect, as best we can, the potentially most vulnerable parts of our community: fully trained scientists who are applying for their first grants, experienced investigators who are renewing their grants and maintaining their research teams, and the trainees we will need for cancer research in the future.
I intend to send you more details about plans for FY2013 once budgets for the rest of the year have been defined. But I want you to know that those of us working on your behalf at the NCI are making every effort to sustain the functionality of our research enterprise in difficult times.
Harold Varmus
Director, NCI
Office of Justice Programs (OJP)
03.18.13: Information for OJP Grantees Regarding Sequestration and FY13 Appropriations
Dear Office of Justice Programs Grantee:
As a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the President signed the budget sequestration order on March 1st, which requires across-the-board reductions to most Federal Government accounts. For the Department of Justice, the total reduction was $1.67 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, which, by law, must be applied to all Department programs. This reduction will result in serious consequences for the administration of justice for our communities across the Nation. The sequestration cut OJP FY2013 funding levels by about $110 million. We understand these reductions impact all of us, including our grantees and customers in the state, local and tribal justice communities.
As I explained in my February 22nd email to OJP’s grantees and cooperative agreement recipients, senior leadership throughout the Department of Justice has been working to determine how we could best manage sequestration budget reductions while protecting the Department’s ability to perform its mission, including how we can best position the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) to mitigate the impact on our state, local, tribal, and non-profit partners.
Sequestration budget reductions will affect FY 2013 funding levels for OJP programs across the board. Sequestration will not reduce grantee funds received in previous fiscal years.
Providing training and technical assistance to our state, local and tribal justice partners is part of OJP’s core mission. However, in light of the budget environment and concerns over government spending, we have redoubled our vigilance of the expenditure of tax dollars, particularly larger expenditures, at such a critical time. As a result, and due to the restrictions on spending under the sequestration, the ability of OJP’s federal staff to travel and participate in grantee meetings and events will be significantly reduced, and possibly eliminated in the near term.
For cooperative agreement recipients, newly proposed state, local and tribal conferences will continue to be carefully scrutinized throughout the review. We continue to strongly encourage grantees and cooperative agreement recipients to consider alternative means to achieve our collective goals, including the use of video conferencing, webinars, and other technologies when feasible. All conference costs should be kept to the bare minimum needed to support essential business. Large conferences (including training events) with combined expenditures over $100,000 will likely be postponed except in cases where life and safety or other mission critical needs are at risk without the event taking place at the current time.
Still much is unknown regarding the final impact of the sequestration and the final fiscal year 2013 appropriations. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and will share with you information as it becomes available.
We thank you for your work in support of state, local and tribal justice and your partnership, and your understanding in these extraordinarily difficult times.
Sincerely,
Mary Lou Leary
Acting Assistant Attorney General
Office of Justice Programs
03.21.13: Sequestration Update for OVW Grantees and Cooperative Agreements
Dear Office on Violence Against Women Grantee:
As a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, the President signed the budget sequestration order on March 1st, which requires across-the-board reductions to most Federal Government accounts. For the Department of Justice, the total reduction was $1.67 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, which, by law, must be applied to all Department programs. This reduction will result in serious consequences for the administration of justice for our communities across the Nation. The sequestration cut OVW FY2013 funding levels by $20 million. We understand these reductions impact all of us, including our grantees and customers in the state, local and tribal justice communities.
As I explained in my February 22nd email to OVW’s grantees and cooperative agreement recipients, senior leadership throughout the Department of Justice has been working to determine how we could best manage sequestration budget reductions while protecting the Department’s ability to perform its mission, including how we can best position the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) to mitigate the impact on our state, local, tribal, and non-profit partners.
Sequestration budget reductions will affect FY 2013 funding levels for OVW programs across the board. Sequestration will not reduce grantee funds received in previous fiscal years.
Providing training and technical assistance to our state, local, tribal, and non-profit partners is part of OVW’s core mission. However, in light of the budget environment and concerns over government spending, we have redoubled our vigilance of the expenditure of tax dollars, particularly larger expenditures, at such a critical time. As a result, and due to the restrictions on spending under the sequestration, the ability of OVW’s federal staff to travel and participate in grantee meetings and events will be significantly reduced, and possibly eliminated in the near term.
For cooperative agreement recipients, newly proposed state, local, tribal, and non-profit conferences will continue to be carefully scrutinized throughout the review. We continue to strongly encourage grantees and cooperative agreement recipients to consider alternative means to achieve our collective goals, including the use of video conferencing, webinars, and other technologies when feasible. All conference costs should be kept to the bare minimum needed to support essential business. Large conferences (including training events) with combined expenditures over $100,000 will likely be postponed except in cases where life and safety or other mission critical needs are at risk without the event taking place at the current time.
On March 21, 2013, Congress passed a continuing resolution bill funding the Government until September 30, 2013. This will now go to the President for his signature. However, the sequestration is still in effect, and OVW remains subject to a $20 million reduction. We will continue to monitor this situation closely and will share with you information as it becomes available.
We thank you for your work in support of domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence, and stalking victims and survivors, your partnership, and your understanding in these extraordinarily difficult times.
Sincerely,
Bea Hanson
Acting Director
03.04.13: Sequestration - The Budget Control Act of 2011 may affect your funding for FY13
Dear Grantee:
As you are likely aware, in accordance with the Budget Control Act of 2011, a series of spending cuts, called sequestration, will cancel approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the Federal government for the remainder of the Federal fiscal year. As a partner with you in accomplishing the SAMHSA mission, we are writing to provide you with information about what this reduction means for the funds provided to your organization.
At this time, the Department of Health and Human Services and SAMHSA are taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but based on our initial analysis, it is possible that your grants or cooperative agreement awards may be affected. Examples of this impact could include: not issuing continuation awards, or negotiating a reduction in the scope of your awards to meet the constraints imposed by sequestration. Additionally, plans for new grants or cooperative agreements may be re-scoped, delayed, or canceled depending on the nature of the work and the availability of resources.
To the extent that fiscal year 2013 funds for your grants or cooperative agreement are affected due to these budget cuts, you will be contacted by the appropriate Grant Management Officer with additional details at a later point. Please note that these budget cuts do not affect grant or cooperative agreement awards made with fiscal year 2012 resources.
Thank you for your continued partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services and SAMHSA and for your cooperation as we work together to manage these circumstances.
If you have any additional questions or concerns please contact your assigned Grants Management Specialist.
Sincerely,
Christine Chen
Director, Division of Grants Management
Office of Financial Resources