Congress Passes FY 2015 Funding – Civilian Highlights, Part 3

Read our Civilian Highlights, Part 2.

 

Transportation

Department of Transportation receives $17.8B in discretionary funding, the same as the fiscal year 2014 enacted level and $4.8B below the president’s request.

• $12.4B for the Federal Aviation Administration, $17M below the fiscal year 2014 enacted level. Funding is preserved for FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation Systems (NextGen) investment.
• $1.6B for the Federal Railroad Administration, an increase of $23M above the fiscal year 2014 enacted level.
• $2.3B for the Federal Transit Administration, an increase of $141M over the fiscal year 2014 enacted level.
• $830M in both mandatory and discretionary funding for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an increase of $11M over the fiscal year 2014 enacted level
• $584M for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a decrease of $1M from the fiscal year 2014 enacted level.
• $9.1M for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
• $186M for the Maritime Security Program, the same level in the current authorization.

Treasury

The Department of the Treasury funding is part of the Financial Services Appropriations.  Treasury’s discretionary funding totals $12.5B for FY 2015.  Treasury highlights of the omnibus bill include the following:

• $10.9B for the IRS, a reduction of $345.6M below FY 2014 and $1.5B below the president’s request. This amount includes $290M for business systems modernization.
• $112M for Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
• The bill does not provide any additional funds for the IRS to implement the Affordable Care Act.
• The bill contains several important oversight and policy provisions related to the IRS, to combat waste and increase accountability.

Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs funding is part of the broader Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Appropriations.  VA’s discretionary funding totals $65B for FY 2015.  VA highlights of the omnibus bill include the following:

• $45.2B for VA medical services to provide care and treatment for approximately 6.7 million veterans. This includes: $7.2B in mental health care services; $133M in suicide prevention activities; $229M for traumatic brain injury treatment; $7.4B in homeless veterans treatment, services, housing, and job training; and $250M in rural health initiatives.
• $209M to help address new costs related to the Veterans Access, Choice, and Accountability Act of 2014 – such as hiring medical staff and expanding facility capacity and to implement the Caregivers Act, which provides stipends and other assistance to families of seriously wounded veterans.
• $344M to help ensure DoD-VA EHRs that will seamlessly transfer medical information.
• Requires the VA to create a truly interoperable, working system to help prevent unnecessary mistakes or delays in veterans’ medical care. If goals are not met, a portion of the funding will not be released.
• $2.5B for disability claims processing backlog. This is $40M over the president’s budget request.  The increase is to be used to support digital scanning of claims, to hire additional claims processors in regional offices, and for the centralized mail initiative.
• $99M to fund the Board of Veterans Appeals to address the looming appeals backlog.
• $562M for major construction to correcting critical seismic deficiencies and repair crumbling infrastructure in some of the VA’s oldest structures.
• $58.7B in advance FY 2016 appropriations for Veterans Medical Programs to provide for medical services, medical support and compliance, and medical facilities, and ensure that veterans have continued access to their medical care.

Check out our Defense Highlights of the FY 2015 Omnibus here.

Fellow GovWin Federal Industry Analysis (FIA) analysts Kyra Fussell, Angela Petty, and Alex Rossino contributed to this entry.