Continuing Resolutions

No, not the kind that you renew every New Year's Day. I'm talking about the ones that Congress passes and the President signs almost every year to keep federal facilities operating in lieu of a budget appropriation. In my 14 years in government science research, my agency has never had a budget passed before the start of the new fiscal year. It leads to fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and is a drag on long-term planning (I wonder if FUD has ever been used in this way). Every year we're warned to spend at some reduced level under the CR until a budget is passed. Every year this tends to slow decision making in that time frame.

This year though, appears especially bad. With the switch in the balance of power in Congress, a second CR will presumably be passed tomorrow that will be in place until February. It is not expected that a budget for most agencies will not be passed until then, after the new Congress takes a whack at it. What makes it bad is not the time (not unusual after all), but the fact that we have been under a CR that restricts spending to a unexplainably low budget mark in the House draft budget. If the CR doesn't change this we could be in big trouble. The agency has a number of contracts and grants it must honor first. Then what ever is left gets doled out.

Since it's not enough to even pay the salaries of the federal employees at my research center, the hit will come by canceling or not renewing all contract technicians, travel to scientific conferences, and the inability to buy supplies for the lab. Research will stop and we could end up just sitting. I can keep some busy as there are some papers to write, and I'm writing grant proposals (not the norm for government science but has been for me). But for others, they could just be sitting.

For a group of dedicated, talented, and hard working researchers, this could be devastating in the short term. In the long term, we could lose some of these people back to academia or biotech if they get too frustrated. I know that's what I'm thinking after my 14 years.