GPDN Conference Call

GPDN Conference Call

Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011

11:00 a.m. CT

Attendance: Tamla Blunt, Mary Burrows, Sharmila Dabade, Judy Dizon, Sharon Dobesh, Gary Franc, Ron French, Jim Kalisch, Kasia Kinzer, Mark Mayfield, Chandrika Mitra, Linnea Skoglund, Jim Stack, Bill Stump
Joined later in the call - Connie Tande, Holly Davis

Agenda

GPDN Funding 2011-2012

We’ve been notified of the award, an account has been created. USDA has not yet put any money in the account to draw on. This is why the money has not flowed out to the states.

Who does this create hardship for in respect for national meeting??

MT – drawing from other funds, only have 3 months to correct it.

WY - problem from them

CO - Tamla thinks they’re ok, Ned needs to answer this

ND – using other funds now, can reimburse other accounts, Kasia’s not sure if there is a 3-month time limit.

SD – not on the call

NE – adequate funds for travel, Amy should be okay.

OK – not on the call

TX – rolled over some money, okay for now

Questions for this year’s funding? Spending by May 31?

Yes it does need to be spent out by May 31, 2012 to zero. Please spend in Jan-Feb. time frame if possible to avoid back-up and delays in April/May.

NPDN National Meeting

The original plan was to couple it with the 5-year review. The 5-year review was decoupled from the National Meeting. Try to get registered this week if possible.

NPDN Advocacy Efforts

APS has been very supportive of NPDN. They have provided the time of a lobbying advocate, Kelley Eversole, to help the network in Washington. The U.S. House version of the budget appropriated $0 to FADI. FADI was zeroed since they thought it was redundant to APHIS’s mission. Good news is they left the line item into the budget. Over the last few months, efforts have focused on the senate side. Senator Robert’s staff arranged a meeting with the Senate Ag Committee. Senate restored FADI funding to FY 2011 levels. NPDN will be challenged to get everything done at 40% reduction from original levels. We may have to narrow the scope of our mission.

Most expect Congress to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) for FY2012. The FY2012 budget will provide the funding that will support the first year of the next Cooperative Agreement (June 2012 to May 2013). There is still a small chance that we will end up with $0 funding. However, most anticipate that the CR will restore funding to the FY2011 level (i.e., the 40% cut we experienced last year). If indirect cost recovery of 10% is implemented, the new funding level will be an approximate 46% cut in funding from FY2010. With reduced funding, a new set of minimum expectations will need to be created. Scope of the network will have to shrink to fit funding. There will be no carryover to help with decreased funding.

Advocacy will continue to try to get funding levels restored to FY2010. Discussions are going on with other agencies for support of our mission.

MT – Considered base funding and competitive portion for different activities?

Jim-what’s that base level? $20,000 could support salaries and supplies, travel would be limited. Competitive could help with travel.

WY – About $20,000. Things will be tight.

CO – They’ll just need to cut back if that’s the funding level.

ND – will probably have to cut back on travel. Take more care on spending for equipment and supplies. Training seems important. Kasia feels the training will be one of the larger losses due to training.

SD – Funding will have to look for other funding and travel will be non-existent. It will seriously hurt SD.

NE – emphasize more activities to the diagnostics. First Detector training will be reduced.

OK – not on call

TX – No support from Texas A&M, depend heavily on GPDN funding. Will try to keep one person on board and supplies. Try to make it up by surveys and other work. We’ll suffer for sure.

Jim is confident we’ll get some funding, but not sure of the levels. Also look at it as a business and look at business models for core funding to support the diagnostics and other programs to support other activities. Have good support and more trips to Washington are in the planning.