Highlights
- Congress has once again rejected
the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) proposal to reorganize its budget to
fully report all costs associated with its R&D portfolio, including support
and personnel costs.
- VA federal R&D totals $805 million in FY 2006 (see Table),
up 2.7 percent from last year and a similar boost over the request.
VA R&D in FY 2006 Conference Appropriations
On November 17,
congressional appropriators released the conference report (final agreement)
for the FY 2006 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations
bill (HR 2528); the House and Senate gave final approval a day later,
setting the stage for President Bush to sign it into law this week.
This newly-created bill funds the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
as well as military construction and other programs of the Department
of Defense (DOD). In previous years, VA had been funded along with the
National Science Foundation, NASA, and EPA in the now-eliminated VA-HUD
appropriations bill. The final appropriation for VA R&D in 2006 follows the earlier Senate version of the bill with
an increase of $21 million or 2.7 percent to $805 million, $19 million
more than the request and the House appropriation (see Table). (For details of the President’s request for
VA R&D, please see Chapter 8 of AAAS
Report XXX: R&D FY 2006 or
the March 3 VAR&D Funding Update.)
The Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) is one of the 10 largest R&D funding agencies
in the federal government, with the 10th largest R&D
portfolio in the FY 2006 request, but receives relatively little attention
because its entire R&D investment goes to its own hospitals. VA’s
Medical and Prosthetic Research is a longstanding program of research
aimed at improving health care for veterans through research on injuries
and illnesses with special relevance to veterans. All scientists and
engineers who receive VA funds must be VA employees, and thus its entire
R&D investment takes place in VA hospitals and laboratories except
for a small proportion of VA investigators who hold joint appointments
with academic institutions. This year, the VA R&D portfolio is overshadowed
even more than usual by other VA programs because multi-billion dollar
operating deficits in VA medical care accounts have come to light in
recent weeks, which have prompted Congress to allocate billions of dollars
in emergency spending for 2005 and 2006 to fully fund VA medical care
costs, with additional billions likely to be needed.
The Medical and
Prosthetic Research budget account is the core of VA’s research effort,
but in the past it has funded just over half of VA’s total R&D for
support of direct R&D costs. Investigator salaries, support costs,
infrastructure, and other costs have been funded out of other VA medical
care accounts. The FY 2006 budget proposed to consolidate all these
R&D costs into the Medical and Prosthetic Research account in a
request of $786 million, compared to a 2005 appropriation of $402 million.
After adjusting the 2005 budget for support costs, the 2006 request
represented a $2 million or 0.3 percent gain (see Table).
VA has requested
this consolidation twice before, but Congress has kept funding under
the old system. The House, the Senate, and now the conference agreement
follow the pattern by rejecting this consolidation and keeping direct
R&D costs only in the Medical and Prosthetic Research account.
Other costs would continue to be funded in other VA medical care accounts,
for a total of $805 million in 2006 for all VA R&D costs (see Table).
Figure 1. (click on
the image for PDF)
VA federal R&D
has mostly expanded in recent years as the overall VA budget has grown
(see Figure 1). After peaking last year, VA R&D fell off in 2005
and stays level in 2006 plan because of tough budgetary pressures for
domestic spending. Years ago, VA did not count support, salary, and
infrastructure costs in its R&D funding. The big jump in FY 1997
represents VA’s decision to add in these costs beginning that year.
President Bush
is expected to sign the Military Construction / VA bill into law shortly.
But this conference report may not be the final word; Congress is working
on an across-the-board cut for all appropriations to add to the final
FY 2006 appropriations bill. The cut is expected to reach back even
to enacted appropriations bills and reduce funding for all programs
by up to 2 percent.
-
November 22, 2005
(This analysis is one of a series of AAAS R&D Funding
Updates on FY 2006 congressional appropriations. The complete series
of AAAS R&D Funding Updates, including continually updated analyses
of R&D in FY 2006 appropriations, is available on the AAAS
R&D Web Site (http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd) in the "FY
2006 R&D" or the "What's New"
sections.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607; -6600
AAAS R&D
Web site: www.aaas.org/spp/rd
