The annual congressional process that will eventually lead to funding the federal government for fiscal year (FY) 2017 (October 1, 2016 – September 30, 2017) is well underway. Although final decisions on how much federal agencies will get to spend next year are still weeks away, the House and Senate have made enough progress with respect to appropriations covering the Department of Labor (including the Office of Federal Compliance Programs (OFCCP)) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that some informed predictions can be made as to where funding for these agencies is likely to end up in FY 2017.
For the seventh consecutive year, OFCCP and the EEOC are likely to receive relatively flat funding once again in FY 2017, despite calls for substantial increases included in President Obama’s proposed annual budget. In fact, OFCCP faces the possibility of a real budget cut, if numbers approved by the respective House and Senate Appropriations Committees are ultimately adopted.
It is no coincidence that these same funding committees have been openly critical of the heavy-handed enforcement tactics that OFCCP and the EEOC have been employing during the Obama Administration. Congressional appropriators have again included language accompanying their funding recommendations that take the agencies to task for the way in which they are enforcing the laws over which they have jurisdiction.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.