CBO: Federal Executive Boards would need more money under legislative proposal

The country's Federal Executive Boards need about $3 million more per year to provide them with an annual budget and staff, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office.

The report made its estimate in response to a bill in the Senate that would replace current funding for the 28 boards that depends mainly on voluntary contributions from participating agencies with an annual budget approved by Congress.

CBO concluded that the government spent $5 million last year on the executive boards, which provide services ranging from training to emergency planning, through voluntary agency contributions. The bill also would devise a formula to determine fees for participating agencies and require the boards to create bylaws subject to approval by the Office of Personnel Management.

"A lot of us are understaffed and under-resourced currently," said Kim Ainsworth, executive director of the Greater Boston Federal Executive Board, who has testified about this issue before Congress. "It would be more equal across the board," if the bill were enacted, she added.

The legislation would set the boards' funding by law, and increase its budget by about $2 million in 2010, and $3 million each year after that, for a total of $14 million from 2010 to 2014. CBO based its estimate on information provided by OPM.

The boards were created by a 1961 executive order. According to their 2008 annual report, their joint alternative dispute program saved more than $20.7 million that year. Critics have claimed that the current funding system is unstable and inequitable, and a 2007 GAO report recommended a steady funding source if the boards are to play a larger role in national emergency planning.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved S. 806 on July 29, and it is now before the full Senate. No companion bill exists in the House.