FEATURE STORY

President's budget cuts funds
Agency is routinely underfunded
By C. Richard Cotton
DBJ Contributing Writer

President Bush’s budget released in early February calls for $6 million for the Delta Regional Authority, far less than its inaugural appropriation of $20 million in 2001, but the same figure the President has proposed since 2005.
Lawmakers, however, have doubled Bush’s proposal each of the last three years bringing the organization’s funding up to $12 million each time.
“I hope Congress will provide the Delta Regional Authority with the funding it needs to carry out its important mission,” says United States Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “The Delta Regional Authority offers valuable assistance to communities seeking to improve the quality of life for their citizens and stimulate economic development.”
Cochran is chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and its ranking Republican.
The Delta Regional Authority, or DRA, performs economic development planning in 240 counties in eight states including Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Recent successes include a state grant program, the completion of a plan for a proposed Delta development highway system, the undertaking of a multimodal study that brings in all forms of transportation to the area, a diabetes awareness program called “Healthy Delta” and a leadership program.
Rex Nelson, alternate federal cochairman for the DRA, says Congress would look at the organization’s programs and job performance when considering the DRA’s budget for fiscal year 2009.
“Even though the $12 million has been fairly consistent, it was also up and down the years before that,” Nelson says. “I wouldn’t want to predict at all what Congress might do.”
For fiscal years 2008 to 2006, Congress appropriated $12 million to the DRA. In fiscal year 2005, it received $6 million. For 2004, it received $5 million, and in 2003, the appropriation was $8 million. For 2002, it received $10 million and $20 million in 2001.
U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) is a longtime advocate of the DRA.
“Our children in the Delta should be able to grow up with pride and dignity in their region and have the opportunity to live and work in the area they love,” Lincoln says. “That is why I have worked tirelessly since my first term in Congress to create and sustain the Delta Regional Authority, which represents the long-term federal commitment we need to strengthen our Delta communities.”
Lincoln says that unfortunately President Bush has consistently proposed to under-fund the DRA.
“I believe that a budget reflects the values of those who prepare it,” Lincoln says. “I am disappointed that in his final budget proposal to Congress, the President has again left behind rural Americans living in the Delta. As in years past, I will work with my colleagues in the Senate to restore funding to the DRA and fulfill the federal government’s commitment to Delta families and residents.”
For 2008, Nelson says the DRA is entering the second year of its Healthy Delta diabetes prevention program, continuing its multimodal study for the entire region and finishing a strategic economic development study for the area the DRA serves.
More information on the DRA is available at www.dra.gov  DBJ



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