WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission is facing a budget crisis that one commissioner said on Thursday would be a “major hit.”
“I am not sure if everybody is fully apprised of how serious of a budget situation we could be facing either under the continuing resolution or if we do get the omnibus enacted,” said FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein.
The FCC is operating under a continuing resolution that kept FCC funding at fiscal-year 2003 levels, but FCC Managing Director Andrew Fishel said that due to inflation and cost-of-living salary increases, which kicked in Jan. 1, the actual money available for commission initiatives has decreased from last year.
Before Congress adjourned in December, it failed to pass the appropriations bill to fund the FCC for FY04. It is hoped that Congress will be able to pass the bill when it returns this week. However, if it passes the last available version, the FCC will be short $7 million from its request.
This budget situation will result in some priorities being put on the back burner, said Fishel. “The FCC has seen good budget years and has seen lean budget years and this year will certainly be a lean year. We have shown tremendous ability in the past to meet those challenges. There are clearly going to be activities and development of activities in a variety of areas that the bureaus and offices are going to have to defer that they would like to accomplish in FY04, but we will keep those ideas and go back as part of the FY05 process and try to do those,” he said.
John Muleta, chief of the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, said it was too soon to say what wireless bureau initiatives may need to be cut back, but he said the bureau was being forced to make some trade-offs.
FCC Chairman Michael Powell moved quickly to reassure agency employees that their jobs are secure.
“As chief budget officer at all costs we will protect the jobs and the benefits of our employees. That will be the last possible thing we ever look at, under my leadership at least,” said Powell. “We are only as good as the people we recruit and the people we manage.”
The FCC on Thursday held its third annual strategic planning meeting. Adelstein praised the work of the FCC’s Enforcement and Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureaus but noted that the budget situation makes it difficult to do the things that Congress desires.
“Congress is interested in seeing additional enforcement in all of these areas and yet at the same time our resources are pinched to do the job,” said Adelstein. “As we face additional complaints next year, it will be increasingly difficult for us if we don’t get the adequate resources for us to do the job that Congress charged us with.”
One of the enforcement/consumer affairs issues that has strained FCC resources is wireless local number portability. Due in part to the implementation of WLNP on Nov. 24, the FCC’s Call Center saw its volume nearly double in the fourth quarter of 2003, leading to a backlog that CGB Chief K. Dane Snowden said it hopes to eliminate before the end of the first quarter of 2004.
“Let’s put the backlog issue in context. Three years ago, the commission (and my bureau) was looking at a backlog of 63,000 complaints. Today we have 161. So in reality when we talk about backlog, our goal is to always have zero and that is a very efficient goal and a goal we have achieved. When you have a surge of two consumer-orientated programs like WLNP and do-not-call, you are going to see an increase. We are quarter off from where we want to be. While I have to report where we are on the backlog, We are doing a damn good job,” said Snowden.
