From: Dennis Kubly 

To: Barger, Mary; Bill Persons; Christensen, Kerry; Davis, Bill; Drye, Brenda; Greiner, Lloyd; Harris, 

Chris; Henderson, Norm; John O'Brien; Johnson, Rick; Jonathan Damp; Kincaid, Chris; King, Robert; Knowles, 

Glen; Lehr, Phillip; McMullen, Ken; Seaholm, Randy; Shields, John; Steffen, Mark; Steven Begay; Stevens, Larry; 

Werner, Bill; Yeatts, Michael 

Date: 2/4/2005 4:51:43 PM 

Subject: Fwd: BAHG Conference Call on FY 06 Budget and Workplans 

All, 

At the recent TWG meeting, not everyone was able to provide their responses to the following questions from the 

Budget Ad Hoc Group. If you were among those individuals, and still wish to provide comment, please take a few 

minutes to do so. Comments will be synthesized, reviewed by the BAHG, and presented to the AMWG at their March 

2-3 meeting as a preface to the budget discussion. Thanks for your help. 

dk 

>>> Dennis Kubly 1/28/2005 5:35:52 PM >>> 

All, 

The Budget Ad Hoc Group held a conference call today on the draft FY 06 budget and workplans. One outcome of the 

call was an agreement to send an email to all TWG members for your use in thinking about the budget and workplan 

deliberations next week. The BAHG, like you, is faced with the difficulty of commenting on a large document with 

limited time for review. The BAHG advocates that we begin budget and workplan deliberations by addressing several 

broad questions or issues, rather than proceeding quickly to discussions of the merits of individual projects. We are not 

sure that a consensus recommendation on the draft budget and workplan can be reached at our meeting, or that it is 

mandatory that we do so. Our understanding is that the primary emphasis for the AMWG at their March meeting is that 

they view and discuss the draft budget and workplan, so that they can give feedback prior to seeing the products in 

draft final form. The Core Monitoring Ad Hoc will be addressing some of these questions on Feb 1, and there will be a 

report on their discussions presented at the TWG meeting. At the close of the TWG meeting on Feb 3, we will need to 

schedule meetings to complete the process and have a draft final budget to AMWG at their summer meeting. 

The questions/issues are as follows: 

(1) Do the budget and workplan contain adequate information for the AMWG to determine whether the priorities 

identified at their August 2004 workshop were adequately considered in developing these products? Are the AMWG 

priorities identified in sufficient detail for the TWG to make these comparisons? 

(2) The budget is weighted heavily toward monitoring and contains very little funding for experiments. Are the reasons 

for this weighting adequately portrayed? 

(3) Deliberations over allocation of the budget resulted in continuation of some projects, rejection of some projects, 

amalgamation of some projects, and development of some new projects. Are the thought processes that led to these 

decisions apparent? Are the pros and cons of projects compared adequately for you to be able to understand why 

some projects are proposed to be continued and some not? 

(4) There are changes in budget figures as portrayed in the FY 06 budget sheet from those in FY 04 and FY 05 

budgets passed by AMWG, including an identification of deficits in the previous years. Is it clear to you why these 

changes have occurred and what the implications of these changes are to the GCDAMP? 

(5) Do the FY 06 budget and workplan contain sufficient funding emphasis for synthesis of existing information and 

development of an ecosystem perspective? Do they adequately portray the connection between proposed FY 06 

expenditures and the measurement of success or failure in meeting program management objectives and fulfilling 

information needs? 

That is all. BAHG members, if I have erred in describing any of these questions or issues, please feel free to add your 

own impressions. Thanks. 

CC: Fairley, Helen; Garrett, Dave; Liszewski, Mike; Lovich, Jeffrey; Melis, Ted; Ralston, Barbara; Whetton, 

Linda