U.S. Government: Budget For Online Data Transparency Projects CUT (From $34 Million to $8 Million)

From a Sunlight Foundation Blog Post by Dan Schuman:

Details emerging last night on the FY 2011 budget agreement indicate that the electronic government fund will be cut to $8m from the $34 million appropriated in FY 2010, a reduction to 1/4 of its previous funding. As I explained previously, some projects facing defunding include the information repository data.gov, the government-spending reporting site USASpending.gov, the recently-launched cloud computing initiative, citizen engagement tools, and online collaboration tools. Altogether, six project areas apparently will be affected by the cuts. By comparison, other programs in the “financial services and government sector,” which includes the e-gov fund,  were cut by a (comparatively slight) 10% from their FY2010 levels.

More than 10 organizations and 6,000 individuals have called upon Congress to “save the data.” Many of these programs have served as a model for similar state programs and efforts by more other countries.

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It is unclear which programs will be cut or eliminated. The electronic government fund is a bucket of money spent on federal transparency programs at Federal CIO Vivek Kundra’s discretion, subject to statutory mandate. He will have to make the tough decisions about where to cut; we now know much much is on the chopping block.

Read the Complete Blog Post and  View the New “Save The Data” Video

Learn More About the “Save The Data” Campaign

See Also: “Transparency Websites Hit by Budget Ax” (by William Matthews, GovExec.com)

See Also: “Data.gov et al. Budget Slashed by 75%” (by Marshall Kirkpatrick, RWW)

Filed under: Associations and Organizations, Data Files, Funding, News, Open Access