F e d e r a l D e p o s i t o r y L i b r a r y P r o g r a m ADMINISTRATIVE NOTES Newsletter of the Federal Depository Library Program ---------------------------------------------------------------------- November 15, 2000 GP 3.16/3-2:21/15 (Vol. 21, no. 15) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- FY 2001 APPROPRIATIONS CUTS FOR THE FDLP Remarks by Andrew M. Sherman Director, Congressional, Legislative and Public Affairs Before the Federal Depository Conference and Fall 2000 Meeting of the Depository Library Council Arlington, VA October 23, 2000 The good news is that GPO has appropriations for fiscal year 2001. Our bill was approved by the House on September 14 and by the Senate on October 12, and the measure has gone to the President. (He has until October 30 to sign it, but in a statement on Thursday the White House said they are withholding signing because of the Treasury-Postal bill, to which our bill-the Legislative Branch appropriations bill-is linked. (Postscript: the President vetoed the Legislative Branch bill along with the Treasury-Postal bill late on October 30, in the midst of the onging confrontation between the White House and Congress over year-end tax, spending, and other legislative measures.) The bad news is that our total appropriations this year are about 4% less than last year's. The Salaries and Expenses Appropriation of the Superintendent of Documents-the appropriation that covers the Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP)-is 6% less than last year's, down by nearly $2 million. Fran Buckley and his staff have been making plans to ensure that the library community will continue to have access to as much Federal information as possible in the coming year, and they will talk more about that throughout this conference. As background, I'm going to tell you how our appropriations got cut. Specifically, I want to make it clear to you that the funding cuts and increased electronic formats are coming at you at the explicit direction of Congress. When I'm finished you might still have questions about how GPO will carry out this direction, but you shouldn't have any questions as to why. I also urge you to read Tim Coggins' article in the October 2000 issue of Virginia Lawyer, "Print No More: U.S. Code, Code of Federal Regulations, and the Federal Register," which provides an excellent summary of how the FDLP has come to this point. Electronic FDLP Transition Let's start by going back 5 years to the 104th Congress. For the 1996 Salaries and Expenses appropriation, there was an initial proposal in the House for a funding cut of nearly 51% by requiring GPO to bill agencies for their depository copies rather than paying for them out of the appropriation. There was an outcry from the library community, and as a result it didn't pass. But the conferees on that year's appropriations bill ordered GPO to develop a plan to transition the FDLP to an increasingly electronic basis. The idea was to reduce FDLP costs by encouraging the expanded use of less expensive electronic formats. What resulted was the Study to Identify Measures Necessary for a Successful Transition to a More Electronic Federal Depository Library Program (June 1996) that has been guiding the FDLP's electronic transition. Despite initial congressional insistence on a 2-year transition, the study projected a longer term of 5-7 years, keying the final transition to the successful resolution of a variety of issues, including permanent access, authenticity, and locator systems. Since then, there's been a lot of progress on the transition. 53% of the new titles made available to the public through the FDLP this year were online, for example. But we have avoided a breakneck conversion to electronic formats that would compromise the public's right to Government information, and there are outstanding issues still to be dealt with. While we've developed partnerships to assure permanent public access for a variety of information, a governmentwide solution to permanent access for all government information has yet to be nailed down, as have solutions to other issues such as authenticity and locator systems. Impact on Appropriations A key congressional interest in the FDLP's transition to electronics has been the opportunity to cut costs. In spite of our annual requests for modest increases-including library community support for increases affecting the FDLP-through 2000 our total appropriations have been reduced nearly 10% from 5 years ago. Most of the cuts have been in our Congressional Printing and Binding appropriation, but the Salaries and Expenses appropriation has also been cut. It was $30.8 million 5 years ago and $29.9 million in 2000, down nearly 3 percent overall. Two years ago, an independent review of GPO conducted by Booz-Allen & Hamilton concluded that the FDLP needed increased funding for marketing of FDLP services, more staff to identify and obtain electronic documents, and more training. Booz-Allen also suggested that GPO, "if necessary, [should] seek additional funds from Congress to expand" GPO Access. To continue current services and accelerate the electronic transition, for 2001 we asked for $34.5 million for the Salaries and Expenses appropriation, an increase of about $4.6 million or 15%, to fund: the addition of new products and capacity to GPO Access as well as permanent public access to the FDLP electronic collection; the printing and distribution of the 2000 edition of depository copies of the U.S. Code; and several new positions in the GPO Access, cataloging and indexing, and library inspections. We also requested more money for our Congressional Printing and Binding appropriation to pay for the increased workload that typically comes with a first session year. Included in this request was about $2.5 million to cover the reprinting of the U.S. Code, done every 6 years. Altogether, our request totaled $121.3 million, including money requested for a new air-conditioning (AC) system in our building. Without the AC funds, we were asking for an increase of about 12%, not an extraordinary hike for continued operations in terms of the rest of the Legislative Branch: the Senate Sergeant at Arms asked to go up 35%, for example, and so did the Capitol Police. Our hearings before both the House and Senate went reasonably well, and we got strong support for our Salaries and Expenses appropriation request from the library community through the testimony by Pat Wand and Ridley Kessler. Congressional Budget Resolution To fully understand what happened this past year, you have to know about the impact of this year's concurrent budget resolution on the appropriations process, which directly affected the Legislative Branch. Normally, we don't pay much attention to these resolutions, because they are crafted at the macro level, and GPO and the FDLP are basically very small players in the overall Federal budget process. But the priorities contained in the budget resolution earlier this year made it clear that despite record surpluses, there would be little room for any spending increases. Of course, many of the limitations of the budget resolution have since gone out the window, but earlier this year the resolution was the guide for all appropriations bills. In April, the House and Senate laid out a $1.8 trillion budget and tax cut plan. It called for substantial tax cuts over the next 5 years, and allocated two-thirds of the budget for entitlements like Social Security and Medicare as well as interest on the national debt. Within the remaining $600 billion targeted for government programs, defense was targeted to increase by more than 6% while domestic spending overall was held to an increase of just 2.6%, with many programs held to a flat or decreased level. Using the priorities in the budget resolution, the Appropriations Committees then established spending allocations for each of the 13 annual appropriations bills. In the House, the Legislative Branch bill was one of 5 bills slated for reduced funding compared with 2000. The cut was 3.7%, about $94 million. Incidentally, the House Legislative Branch allocation was different from the Senate's, which provided $145 million more to work with than the House. On May 4, the House Legislative Appropriations Subcommittee reported its bill out. The budget allocation was used as the rationale for making the spending cuts contained in the bill. But instead of applying the 3.7% cut to all Legislative Branch activities straight across the board, some programs were cut deeply while others were not. GPO sustained the largest percentage cut-over 25%-of any entity in the bill. Other agencies were cut, too: the Architect of the Capitol got hit for almost 18%, the Capitol Police by nearly 12%, and cuts were made to the Congressional Research Service, the General Accounting Office, the Congressional Budget Office, and COLAs (cost of living adjustments) for House employees. But GPO's was the largest. Also, GPO's cut was 25% of the entire cut sustained by the Legislative Branch--$26 million out of $106 million. The full House Appropriations Committee ratified the Subcommittee's plan on May 9, providing details on how the reduction in GPO's funds was to be achieved. The $26 million cut translated into a huge $18.3 million (61%) cut to the Salaries and Expenses appropriation and a $7.8 million (11%) cut to Congressional Printing and Binding. Saying that the FDLP could be run "with more cost-effectiveness by making greater use of electronic information technology," all "funding, except for closeout costs, for distributing paper and other tangible media-based copies of government publications to the Federal depository libraries and international exchange recipients" was eliminated. Obviously, this cut would have been devastating. It would have ended the distribution of about 25,000 of the 40,000 tangible titles we distributed last year, since those 25,000 were available in tangible formats only. It would have terminated the distribution of tangible versions of the other 15,000 titles which were available in dual formats. Except for cataloging and indexing electronic titles, virtually all support services provided by GPO to depository libraries would have been terminated, including program administration, designations, product acquisition, classification, inspections, training, consultative services, and permanent public access partnerships. As a result, most of the staff would have been laid off. The cuts would have eliminated the distribution of tangible materials in the International Exchange Program, operated under international treaty, and would have ended the distribution of all by-law copies of the Congressional Record to the Library of Congress and the National Archives. The Congressional Printing and Binding cuts were also potentially devastating to the FDLP. They eliminated funding for all publications considered "not absolutely essential to the day-to-day operations and legislative activities of the House and Senate," including the Congressional Record Index and index personnel; the U.S. Code; the congressional Serial Sets; printing for the 2001 Presidential inauguration; all numbered documents including the quarterly Statements of Disbursements of the House and the semiannual Report of the Secretary of the Senate; treaties; the Congressional Directory; hearings over 3 months old, and other publications such as Our Flag, and the Capitol Magazine. Cutting funding for these publications from the appropriation virtually guaranteed that they would not be produced, meaning they would not have been made available for depository distribution. The House also required a study of the transfer of Superintendent of Documents functions to the Library of Congress (a proposal which had been rejected twice before by the Library within the past 5 years), and a study of the transfer of the Congressional Printing and Binding Appropriation to the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate (a proposal that also had been rejected earlier). There were a couple of bright spots: the House authorized the use of unexpended funds from prior years for current year purposes, although it was not clear how much of this money would be available for 2001. In addition, the usual reduction to our overall personnel ceiling was left at the 2000 level. On the other hand, the overall cut to our funding would have forced the layoff of about 435 personnel, including as I said earlier virtually all of the FDLP staff. Reaction Reaction to the House cuts was swift. ABC Nightly News covered the Appropriations Committee vote May 9th and that night ran a network story about the cuts featuring Fran Buckley and the FDLP. It also featured the cuts to the Capitol Police, which were said to undermine their attempts to increase security in the wake of the 1998 shootings. The Capitol Police cuts would prove to be the lead story on the cuts in the weeks that followed. The cuts in tangible distribution to depositories also drew widespread attention. An especially effective point was raised about the vulnerability of databases to hackers and virus attacks, since the "I love you" virus had only recently happened. On May 11, Public Printer DiMario sent a strongly worded letter to the Appropriations Committee Members, expressing his "profound concern and dismay" with the cuts and requesting reconsideration of these measures "in the strongest possible terms." Through its Washington representatives and others, the library community spread the word about the cuts to librarians nationwide, many of whom contacted their Congressmen and Senators. Other librarians contacted their local newspapers, which are closely watched on Capitol Hill. I can't count the number of calls my office received from congressional staffs wanting to learn more about what was going on. Senate Action The outcry over the House proposals didn't escape the Senate's attention. On May 23, the Appropriations Committee reported out its version of the Legislative Branch bill. S. 2603 recommended an increase in the Salaries and Expenses appropriation, by .4%. The Committee declined to participate in transferring the congressional printing appropriation to the Senate and said nothing about the transfer of the Superintendent of Documents to the Library of Congress. Floor Votes When the House managers for H.R. 4516 brought their bill to the floor on June 21, there was a managers' amendment which increased the funding for several accounts covered by the bill, including GPO's. The Salaries and Expenses appropriation was increased to $25.7 million. Funding was restored for distribution of the 25,000 titles not otherwise available online, and 90% of the funding for FDLP program administration was put back. But funding remained cut for the tangible distribution of the 15,000 titles available in dual formats. The Congressional Printing and Binding appropriation was also partially restored, putting back funding for inaugural printing, the Congressional Directory, and treaties, but funding was still cut for other "non-legislative" items. While welcomed, the managers' amendment still represented a cut of 8% from the 2000 level of funding. As soon as the House acted, the Senate passed its bill, moving the bill to conference. Conference Agreement On June 30, following the appointment of conferees on the two bills, the Public Printer sent a letter urging them to agree to the higher funding levels for GPO contained in the Senate bill, and to put language in the conference report addressing the other problematic provisions of the House report, specifically the issue of dual formats. He argued that the House requirement to cut off all funding for the tangible distribution of the 15,000 titles available in dual formats was premature, that while we are gradually transitioning these titles to an online-only availability, dual format distribution for other publications continues to be required in many cases. However, the conference agreement simply split the difference on funding for GPO between the Senate and House versions, with the final amounts at $71.5 million for Congressional Printing and Binding and $27.954 million for Salaries and Expenses. For the FDLP, the conferees said "emphasis should be on streamlining the distribution of traditional paper copies of publications which may include providing online access and less expensive electronic formats," but nothing was explicitly said about the continuation of dual formats. On other matters, the conferees did not agree with closing out the Congressional Record Index (CRI) unilaterally (although there is a move underway by the Joint Committee on Printing to survey users of the CRI about its continued usefulness), and limited participation in the potential transfer of the congressional printing appropriation to the House only. They changed the study of the transfer of Superintendent of Documents operations to the Library to include the FDLP only, and directed that GAO-not the Library's Congressional Research Service, as originally proposed-perform the study, to be completed by March 30, 2001. The study is already underway. Passage The conference agreement was brought to the floor in the House in July, attached to a bill funding the Treasury, Postal Service, and other agencies that had previously passed the House but not the Senate. Following Senate objections, it was withdrawn and brought to the floor again in September, where it passed narrowly. In the Senate, however, the two-part bill, known as a "minibus," was rejected, for reasons that had more to do with the Treasury bill than with the Legislative Branch bill. In the meantime, the fiscal year expired. GPO's funding was continued-at FY 2000 levels-in a series of 4, week-long continuing resolutions that have been passed since the end of September. On October 12, the Senate took up the conference agreement on Legislative Branch/Treasury and passed it. When I last checked, however, the President had yet to sign the bill into law. Lessons Learned At the end of his article in Virginia Lawyer, Tim Coggins provides his views on what is likely to happen in the future. One is this that year's congressional action may discourage continued participation by some libraries in the system. This is certainly possible. Already, 20 libraries dropped out of the program in fiscal 2000, the largest dropout rate that we have records for. Let me offer you some additional views, or lessons learned, from the experience of the past several months. Early on, our fear was that the House strategy was to initially propose a draconian cut for GPO, making any restoration of funds-however partial-seem very welcome. This is exactly what happened, and this strategy may be used again. In our view, it turned out to be a blessing that the cut in GPO's funding was proposed in tandem with other, more highly visible cuts, especially the reduction in Capitol Police funding. If the two had not been linked-if only the cut in GPO's funding was proposed-there is a real question in our minds as to what the outcome might have been. Let me tell you why: Despite our efforts and those of the library community, there is a general lack of knowledge on Capitol Hill about what the FDLP is and does. To an extent, that lack of visibility is to be expected: as I said earlier, this is only a $30 million program in a $2.5 billion Legislative Branch, itself only a small part of a $1.8 trillion Government. But that can't stop us from continually trying to raise the program's visibility. Your Washington representatives have been working on this issue, and GPO realizes the need to do more in this regard. For Members of Congress, however, there's nothing like hearing from back home. There is a strong belief among many congressional appropriators that electronic information really solves the problem of how to cut the budget. They believe electronic information is free, or just about, and that it reaches everyone, or close enough, and that it is generally superior to printed information. GPO and the library community think the issue is more complex than that. This is nevertheless a powerful belief to overcome, especially in today's dot.com culture. Now is the time for all of us to work together so we can live within the reduced funding for 2001. Hopefully this will be a constructive experience. From 20 years of experience at GPO, I can tell you that the library community has friends at GPO who believe in the FDLP and who are committed to making it work. They do not determine the level of funding the program gets, however. There was also one very positive lesson: From what we saw over the past several months, your Washington representatives and others did a good job of keeping you informed about the FDLP budget crisis, and the library community's response can be credited with the turnaround-such as it was-in the House and the support you had in the Senate. Members can be educated, and what was started needs to be built upon in the coming months, especially with the upcoming budget round for 2002 and opening of the 107th Congress.