Full allocation for PBO in federal budget

Here is the word from this week's Hill Times:

After a dramatic year of struggling with the House and Senate Speakers and the Parliamentary Librarian, Canada's Parliamentary budget officer will receive the full planned $2.8-million budget he was promised, according to the 2010-2011 main estimates.

"We are very pleased that our budget is back to the original planned level," budget officer Kevin Page told The Hill Times in an email. "This will allow us to do a better job at carrying out our legislative mandate."

It's not a complete victory, though:

Mr. Young's [the Parliamentary Librarian] office said the PBO's $2.8-million funding would be maintained throughout the 2010-2011 fiscal year. Mr. Page said that "given recent history ... there should be a separate line for the PBO" under the Library of Parliament's funding.

Moreover, if you look back to the original three demands of the 'open letter', you'll note that adequate funding only satisfies one of the three demands. The other two outstanding complaints--public reporting and independence--seem to have settled down for the moment, but are not completely resolved.

But, let's call this a victory. Thank you to all of the economists and other interested citizens who supported this initiative. Collectively, I think we helped to do some good here.

I'll keep this blog up, both as an archive of the initiative and also as insurance against any future political pressure on the PBO.

So, go now in peace. We may have dispersed, but we will be watching.

Is the cheque in the mail?

In this week's Hill Times, we learn that the funding for 2010-11 hasn't been completely locked down yet. Things looked promising last week. Is no news good news?

Two weeks ago, Mr. Young [the Parliamentary Librarian] told the committee that he will recommend the Speakers ask for the $2.8-million budget for the PBO. The committee agreed. There was no talk about staffing and Mr. Young refused to answer The Hill Times' questions on that.

"It is essential that the PBO be allowed to hire within our planned budget," Mr. Page wrote to The Hill Times in an email.

"We have many projects underway for Parliamentarians that are being driven by the efforts of staff under secondment—infrastructure, budget implementation impacts, costing of sentencing reform, estimating potential output and structural budget balances, long-term economic and fiscal projections. All these projects for Parliamentarians and more are under risk if staffing is not secured," stated Mr. Page.

If I had to guess (from a position entirely out of the loop and three time zones away), I'd say that all is well. The last we heard the 2.8 million is going through and I don't see anything here that tells me differently. This article seems like more of a 'we haven't forgot about this' story from the Hill Times--which I think is useful. We haven't forgotten about it here, either.