The impacts of the federal withholding for FY07 will be numerous:

• The College will not receive $16 million in anticipated funding.

• The loss will have an impact on the College’s continued annual growth in extramural funding.

• Momentum will be lost in many of our outstanding programs.

• The FY07 appropriation for the addition to the Life Sciences Center will be lost.

• More than 160 faculty, staff and student salaries need to bridged.

Changes in party leadership at the state or federal level often result in changes to established patterns of doing business. So it is now. 

Our College has been successful in obtaining funding for special grants through the efforts of our congressional delegation.  These special grants have been funded through the Cooperative States Research, Extension and Education Service (CSREES) or through the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). The former is the agency within USDA that provides support for agricultural research at land-grant universities such as MU. 

This funding comes in the form of Hatch Funds and comprises a significant portion of the annual funding base received by the Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station (MOAES). ARS is the in-house research arm of the USDA and supports research units such as the Plant Genetics Research Unit, Biological Control of Insects Research Laboratory and the Cropping Systems and Water Quality Research Unit — all associated with our campus. 

The new Congress has targeted federal earmarks as an area of funding to be reassessed. To do so, Congress and the President have approved a continuing resolution (CR) to fund agricultural research for the remainder of FY07. Unfortunately, the CR includes the withholding of funds for agricultural earmarks in FY07. The congressional definition of earmarks includes our special grants. These special grants support many of our important research programs including agricultural and rural policy, agroforestry, soybean research, beef cattle research, irrigation, rice production and the Illinois-Missouri Biotechnology Alliance.    

Nationwide, CSREES funded $186 million in special grants to land-grant universities. Although the funding will not go to support those programs in FY07, the funding will remain in CSREES and be distributed as one-time additional Hatch funding. The MOAES will receive $4 million of the reallocated funding. This will allow the AES to provide funding to bridge the salaries of personnel in the affected projects. 

Regards,
Marc