President Bush Requests $379 Million in FY 2008 for the National Archives and Records Administration
Press Release · Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Washington, DC

Washington, DC…President George W. Bush has sent to Congress a proposed Fiscal Year 2008 budget for the Federal Government that calls for $379,565,000 for the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). This is an increase of $39,571,000 over the FY 2007 appropriations of $339,994,000, which is expected to be enacted as a year-long continuing resolution by the Congress this week.

“I'm very pleased that the President has called for increases in resources that will allow us to continue programs that will enable us to meet many of our strategic goals as the nation’s record keeper,” said Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States. “Those goals include, above all, our work to provide to the public continuing access, far into the future, to the electronic and traditional records of our government.”

Under the President’s FY 2008 request, NARA would receive $312,874,000 for operating expenses, an increase of $34,639,000 over the FY 2007 expected appropriation. This includes funds to prepare for the George W. Bush Presidential Library, provide oversight by the agency’s Inspector General of the work to develop ways to preserve electronic records, and to continue work on reducing the backlog of unprocessed, textual records.

The operating expenses also include funds for the operation of the Richard M. Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, which will become part of the NARA system of Presidential libraries this year after being a privately-run institution since 1990.

The operating expenses budget must also absorb the costs of the general operation of the agency, which includes rapidly rising energy and security costs, increased rental rates for NARA facilities around the country, and pay raises for the nationwide NARA staff.

The Electronic Records Archives (ERA) program, a key NARA strategic goal aimed at providing a means to preserve and make accessible electronic records far into the future, is funded in the FY 2008 request at $58,028,000, which is $12,814,000 over the expected FY 2007 appropriated level.

This higher funding level for ERA will allow NARA to maintain progress on increment 1 of the system, which is scheduled to begin this fall. It will also ensure that ERA has the capability to ingest and store both classified and unclassified records from the Bush Administration in an appropriate and secure environment and provide search and retrieval capabilities in response to special access requests.

ERA and the technology it will create are enormously important—not just to NARA, but to other Federal departments and agencies, state and local governments, and countless private institutions. It will preserve and provide continuing access over time to any type of electronic record, regardless of its original format. Without ERA and its technologies, many of the records of the Federal Government will be at risk and could be lost forever.

For FY 2008, the President has declined to seek funding for grants and staff support for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), NARA's grant-making arm.

For repairs and restoration to facilities owned by NARA, such as the National Archives at College Park, the National Archives Building in downtown Washington, and the Presidential libraries, the President's FY 2008 budget requests $8,663,000.

# # #

For press information, contact the National Archives Public Affairs Staff at 202-357-5300.

07-54