“The 2004 budget is a responsible budget and it funds key priorities and programs here at USDA.”

That was Secretary Ann M. Veneman’s main message when she unveiled USDA’s proposed budget for FY 2004 at a press conference on February 3. She highlighted several items of importance in the Department’s proposed budget, which she said provides unprecedented funding for a food and nutrition ‘safety net,’ provides resources to continue to expand agricultural trade, increases the amount of money for housing for rural citizens, invests in America’s rural sector, strengthens forest health and firefighting capabilities, and improves USDA’s program delivery and customer service.

“Because of fiscal realities, this is a constrained budget,” she advised. “But it focuses and maintains resources in order to meet our strategic goals.”

Key priorities reflected in the proposed budget include: ensuring a safe and wholesome food supply, safeguarding America’s homeland, continued implementation and diligent administration of the 2002 Farm Bill, and providing historic increases for conservation funding and protecting natural resources.

Veneman noted that the proposed budget supports the Department’s overall strategic plan as well as the goals outlined in a policy book, titled “Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century,” which USDA released in the summer of 2001. “Both are designed to enhance economic opportunities in agriculture as well as rural areas, protect the nation’s food supply, improve the nation’s nutrition and health, and protect and enhance the nation’s natural resources and environment,” she said.

USDA’s FY 2004 proposed budget calls for $74.0 billion in spending, an increase of nearly $1.4 billion over the Department’s currently estimated spending for FY 2003 of over $72.6 billion.

Veneman emphasized that the proposed budget for USDA supports the continued implementation of the 2002 Farm Bill. “We have made good progress so far in implementing the Farm Bill,” she said, “and we could not have done it without the tremendous effort and hard work of our staff who are here in Washington, all of our field staff, including our county service centers that are all throughout the country--and we want to again say ‘thank you’ to all of our employees around the country for everything that they’ve done.”

She also said that, on the homeland security front, USDA plans to transfer $247 million to the recently created Department of Homeland Security, to conduct agricultural quarantine inspection activities at U.S. borders and to operate the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in New York. In addition, 2,690 staff years will be transferred from USDA to DHS, including 2,684 from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

USDA’s budget proposes a federal staffing level for FY 2004 of 98,003 full-time equivalent positions, or federal staff years, which is about one percent less than the currently estimated figure for FY 2003. The staffing levels for most agencies for FY 2004 are proposed to increase or stay the same, compared to their currently estimated FY 2003 federal staff year levels.

For more details on USDA’s proposed staffing levels, as well as additional details on other aspects of USDA’s proposed budget for FY 2004, click on http://www.usda.gov/budget

Highlights of USDA’s FY 2004 budget proposal, thought to be of particular interest to employees, include:

• $178 million--an increase of nearly $45 million--to upgrade technology in USDA’s county office service centers. Most of that increase will be used to provide Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies to those offices, which will allow farmers and ranchers more access to satellite mapping and planting information. Currently, many of those maps are in pen and ink form in the county offices, and are not available on computers.
• Funding of $800,000 for the new position of assistant secretary for civil rights.
• Nearly $47 million in new funding to strengthen laboratory security measures, conduct research on emerging animal diseases, develop new vaccines, create new biosecurity database systems, and continue development of the unified federal-state diagnostic network for identifying and responding to high-risk pathogens--all in support of the Department’s homeland security and agricultural protection programs.
• A newly established centralized fund of $6.6 million to support particular cross-cutting trade issues, compliance monitoring, dispute resolution, and biotechnology activities within the Department.

USDA’s proposed budget for FY 2004 was transmitted to Congress on February 3. •