The President's (Final) Budget Request

On Monday of this week, the President released the final budget request of his tenure in the White House. If the President does not allow Congress to spend any amount above his request--a line he held last year--some in the Democratic leadership in Congress are saying they will simply wait until the next President comes into office to fully deal with the budget. The details of the request for this fiscal year (FY) 2009 funding, as it concerns STEM education-related agencies, are laid out in the charts and links below. Each chart includes: FY07 and FY08 funding levels; the President’s last budget request for FY08 and his current budget request for FY09; the increase or decrease from his FY08 request to his FY09 request; and the increase or decrease that his FY09 request represents in comparison to actual FY08 funding (see more details on FY08 funding levels for STEM education here). A brief explanation accompanies some of the agency overviews below. These overviews are in the following order:

- Department of Education
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

*Note: For the most part, there are two links for each agency below, the first of which is to the main budget page for that agency, and the second to the website or document that contains more specific program numbers (the latter are often large Excel or PDF files, so readers are aware). Also, the budget pages for each agency interchangeably use terms such as “President’s budget request” and “Congressional budget request,” but both refer to the same budget request.

Department of Education (to be housed in Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill)

In the President’s request for the Department of Education, he asks for $178.9 million for Math and Science Partnerships (not to be confused with the program of the same name at NSF); this represents flat funding from the recent omnibus allocation for FY08, and a decrease of $3.2 million from his request last year at this time. Due to the America COMPETES Act, this year’s Math Now program combines what were previously two separate programs, one known as “Math Now for Elementary Students,” and the other “Math Now for Middle School Students.” The President requested $95 million for this now-combined program, which is the same amount authorized in COMPETES. Two other programs authorized by COMPETES last year were zeroed out in the President’s request. One was intended to provide funding for master’s degrees for STEM education teachers, and the second was to put in place programs in STEM fields and critical foreign languages that lead to bachelors degrees with concurrent teacher certification. These were each funded at a meager $983,000 in the FY08 budget. Other program funding levels for the Dept. of Education can be found in the chart below.

*Click on chart to enlarge

Helpful Dept. of Education Budget Links:

-Landing page for Dept. of Education budget

-Specifics on Dept. of Education budget: here and here (Excel)

-Dept. of Education’s “Performance Plan,” which describes their strategy and rationale for budget levels (PDF)

Department of Energy (DOE) (to be housed in Energy and Water appropriations bill)

The Office of Science at DOE would see a $644.5 million increase over FY08 funding, from $4,055.5 billion to $4,700 billion. The coordinating body for DOE education programs, the Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS), would see a $5.6 million increase over FY08 funding, from $8 million to $13.6 million. More details are available below.

*Click on chart to enlarge

Helpful DOE budget Links:

-Landing page for Dept. of Energy budget

-Specifics on Dept. of Energy Office of Science budget (PDF)

National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (to be housed in Commerce/Justice/Science appropriations bill)

For the Math and Science Partnership program at the NSF, the President is requesting $51 million, an increase of $2.5 million over FY08 funding, and an increase of $5 million over his FY08 request. The Robert Noyce Scholarship Program would receive an $800,000 increase over FY08 funding, from $10.8 million to $11.6 million. Other details for NSF, NASA and NOAA can be found in the chart below.

*Click on chart to enlarge

Helpful NSF, NASA and NOAA Budget Links:

NSF

-Landing page for NSF budget

-Specifics on NSF Education and Human Resources (EHR) budget (PDF)

NASA

-Landing page for NASA budget

-Specifics on NASA budget (PDF)

NOAA

-Landing page for NOAA budget

-Specifics on NOAA budget (PDF; education program summary on page 515)