CPSC Staff Recommends $60.5 Million FY 2002 Budget: a 24% Increase over Current Spending.

CPSC Commissioners are considering a staff-generated budget recommendation for Fiscal Year 2002 of $60.5 million. That amount is $7.9 million over the still-pending FY 2001 budget ($52.5 million), and $11.7 million more than the current FY 2000 operating budget ($48.8 million)--a 24% increase.

Pamela Gilbert, CPSC's Executive Director advanced several reasons for the proposed increase. One is pay increases ($3.4 million of the increase reflects federal pay raises proposed by President Clinton and the agency's own hiring and promotion activities). Another $210,000 was added to meet the projected costs of inflation, and $150,000 for rent increases, she said.

But chief among the reasons for the $7.9 million increase is the CPSC leadership's desire for a research budget ($1 million), which Gilbert says is "modest" compared to other health and safety agencies. The budget includes $500,000 for "modernization" of the Engineering and Chemistry laboratories, and $1.2 million for two compliance initiatives--a Special Investigations Unit and "Operation Safe On-Line Shopping."

The Special Investigations Unit would get $1 million under the new budget plan to identify unreported product hazards. CPSC staff continues to maintain that companies do not always report, as required by law, when there is evidence that their products might pose substantial hazards to consumers.

The budget document notes that in spite of CPSC's assessing almost $6 million in civil penalties over the past five years, "the trend of companies not reporting serious hazards continues."(1)

The draft budget proposes adding five full time equivalents (FTEs) to the Special Investigations Unit to track down those companies.

Additional increases are proposed in the areas of upgrading of the agency's hazard database, and new activities in the Hazard Assessment and Reduction area. For example, CPSC staff wants to finance a handbook for home playgrounds (for consumers), a guide on product use and assembly instructions (for manufacturers), and a project on the need to address non-metallic sharp edges in toys and other products used by children. (Regulations already exist for metal and glass edges.)

Without this additional funding, Gilbert says, the agency faces "erosion of its effectiveness in the future."(2)

(1) CPSC Monitor reported in its May 2000 issue (Vol. 5, Issue 5) that CPSC Chairman Ann Brown and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton conducted a news conference at which they unveiled a legislative proposal to increase the amounts of civil penalties and address the issue of alleged non-reporting of violative products by manufacturers and retailers.

(2) "Fiscal Year 2002 Budget Recommendation," a Memorandum to the Commissioners of the Consumer Product Safety Commission from Pamela Gilbert, Executive Director, Washington, DC, June 27, 2000