FCC to Close 16 of 24 Field Offices
Chairman pleads budget proposal before Congress
By DEBORAH D. MCADAMS
Mar 24 2015
<http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0086/fcc-to-close–of–field-offices/275143>
WASHINGTON—Field offices are on the chopping block at the Federal Communications Commission. Sixteen of 24 are being targeted for closure, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told members of Congress Tuesday. Wheeler appeared before the House Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to plead the agency’s case for 2016 funding.
He said an audit of field offices revealed several with one manager to four employees in “oversized rental facilities, which are draining our resources.”
“After analyzing a contractor report on field office use, we have determined that we can more efficiently deploy staff using a ‘tiger team’ approach and make better use of regional offices,” he said in prepared testimony. “This plan, if accepted by my fellow commissioners, will lead to 16 field office closures and annual savings of $9 million without diminished productivity.”
Non-auction flat funding has led to staff cuts, he said. The commission currently has 1,708 full-time positions, compared to a 20-year average of 1,877. Contractors have been cut as well, from 600 in 2012 to 435 by the end of 2016.
Yet the 2016 budget request is the first in 10 years that doesn’t include a request for more bodies, but rather cuts 37 positions—30 of them from field offices. (See “FCC Possibly Downsizing Enforcement Field Offices,” at Radio World.)
Wheeler said while the staff’s been shrinking, demands have increased and so has the workload for those still standing. At some point, he said, the cuts will have a negative effect.
“For example, in the licensing operations area since 2010, our FTE levels have declined by more than 25 across several bureaus, versus steady growth in licensing activity over that same time, so at some point licensing operations could slow,” he said.
Licensees ultimately will feel the pain, he said.
The commission is asking for an $84 million increase for 2016 in part because the agency’s lease is up in 2017. After mentioning that the commission has generated 13 times its operational costs for the U.S. Treasury for 20 years, Wheeler went on to request auction funding of up to $117 million, $25 million from the Universal Service Fund and $388 million in general spending authority.
“If the commission’s lease were not expiring in 2017, our budget proposal would look different and my presentation today…,” Wheeler said. “We would have been asking for a modest increase over last year’s funding level…”
Wheeler said moving would cost around $51 million up front—similar to the costs associated with moving for the National Institutes of Health and the National Labor Relations Board. In the long run, he said the move would save money.
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