Defense Appropriations

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

From: farringt () ENIAC SEAS UPENN EDU [ The Dean of our Enggineering school djf]
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 1994 07:39:04 -0400


You may recall that I sent you a series of notes in June regarding moves to
reduce drastically DOD funding levels for university research.


The results are now in, as the following message from David Morse
summarizes.  They are not catastrophic but certainly not good either.  As I
mentioned in the first faculty meeting of this year, the general pressure
in Washington is to decrease levels of university research funding and to
decrease its financial contribution to overhead and staffing costs.  Note
the comment regarding overhead rates in the last paragraph of this message.
 It may seem that reducing overhead is a great thing - and it often is from
the standpoint of the immediate needs of an individual researcher - but it
ultimately saps our ability to support space costs and provide general
service to aid and foster research.  In that way, decreases in overhead
have a long-term negative effect on the quality of the research environment
and serve to emphasize our dependence on income from teaching as the
principal support of the school - tuition from undergraduate, graduate, and
ExMSE students.  [ this is not intended as a negative but just a statement
of fact djf]


David Morse writes:


        "The House-Senate conferees on the Defense appropriations bill for
FY 95 completed their work last evening, and I thought you'd be interested
in the resolution of the university research issue.
        The conferees cut approximately $180 million from general
university-based research, which represents a reduction of approximately
10% from current DoD levels.  While not as severe as the 50%+ reduction
approved in the original House version, it will be painful to Penn
researchers, who received approximately $13 million in DoD support through
the 6.1. and 6.2 research programs last year.  It is unclear at this point
how the cut will be applied by DoD, and how it will affect ongoing programs
and anticipated new research initiatives.  The breakout is as follows:
$13.75 million from Army; $62.245 million from Navy; $18.45 million from
Air Force; $86.49 million from Defense-wide initiatives.
        It would seem appropriate to try to get the Defense Department to
request a restoration of these funds in a supplemental appropriations
request early next year, since Perry and Deutch have been so visibly
supportive of university research as the "jewel in the crown".
        The conference report also asks DoD to address concerns about the
level of indirect costs and the variability in overhead rates by February
1, 1995.
This is similar to language in the conference report in the NIH
appropriations bill, and discussions now pending between the university
community and the Administration on changes in cost policy will have to
reach fruition quickly."