WASHINGTON: Michael Copps asked his bosses for more help yesterday. The acting FCC chairman told a House subcommittee that the agency needed an additional $1 million to hire up.
“In recent years, we have has lost a broad range of professional expertise due to retirements and other separations. Our goal is to recruit and retain highly-skilled employees--particularly engineers and economists, but also legal, policy and other professional staff,” Copps testified. “With the right mix of technical expertise, professional experience and leadership skills, the FCC will be better positioned to deliver the kind of timely, fact-based and transparent decision-making that is rightly expected of it.”
Copps appeared before the House financial services and general government subcommittee yesterday with the FCC’s 2010 budget proposal. The interim chairman requested $336 million, of which $318 million would go toward maintaining “current service levels,” at $6 million above 2009 to account for inflation and other increased expenses.
Another $15 million would go into the commissions IT system and to render FCC.gov actually rather than theoretically searchable. Around $900,000 would go for 10 vehicles specially equipped to identify spectrum interference. A $1 million allocation would go toward ongoing DTV transition issues, particularly low-power stations and translators not required to end analog broadcasting June 12. – Deborah D. McAdams
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