A Review of the NOAA National Sea Grant College Program (1994) / Chapter Skim
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CHAPTER 2 - ISSUES: BACKGROUND AND FINDINGS
CHAPTER 2 - ISSUES: BACKGROUND AND FINDINGS
Pages 13-36
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From page 13... ...
Most state programs focus on addressing state, and to a lesser extent regional, issues. Sea Grant interacts within NOAA through contributing NSGO staff to OAR and NOAA-wide activities, through a series of memoranda of agreement, and by handling pass-through funding.
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From page 14... ...
accounted for approximately 13% of funds handled by state programs in FY1993. Although NSGO staff often participate in cross-NOAA activities, Sea Grant has funded few joint activities with units in other Line Offices because funds for joint NSGO-Line Office activities must be derived from within its capped administrative costs.
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From page 16... ...
It is unlikely that Sea Grant capabilities can be applied throughout NOAA unless the constraints discussed above are removed. To function effectively, Sea Grant must interact with, but be administratively and fiscally insulated from, the Line Offices The decentralized Sea Grant structure provides NOAA the opportunity to operate at a state level and to tailor its programs to the needs of each individual state.
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From page 17... ...
Finding: Sea Grant is not properly positioned within NOAA to fulfill the objective of the National Sea Grant College Program Act4 or to contribute in efficient and effective ways to NOAA's missions. Sea Grant's location within a Line Office focused on research inhibits Sea Grant's non-research activities and makes it difficult for the program to function across Line Office boundaries.
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From page 18... ...
The Sea Grant strategic planning process must result in a vision shared by all Sea Grant partners, including NSGO, CSGD, the individual state programs, SGRP, and the Sea Grant Association (SGA; a non-profit association supported with private funds from Sea Grant colleges)
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From page 19... ...
The lack of a shared vision, common to all Sea Grant partners, for what Sea Grant is and should become, may have hindered its operations and decreased its visibility and utility within NOAA. ISSUE 3 OVERLAPPING ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The Sea Grant program has a dual nature, being a national program but one that is primarily conducted in the states by individual state programs, with the average contribution from the states ranging from 40 to 47% over the past 11 years.
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From page 20... ...
Implementation of this recommendation will require Sea Grant to reassign its subject area specialists. State Programs The vast majority of the activity of the Sea Grant program takes place at the state level, through the individual state programs.
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From page 21... ...
At present, regional coordination of the various Sea Grant state programs consists primarily of bilateral activities between two adjacent states. NSGO provided funding in the early 1980s to help initiate regional programs, but either has not been able to continue such funding given other fiscal demands on the program or has assigned a lower priority to this enterprise.
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From page 22... ...
This system has not permitted evaluations of balance within state programs or rewarded programs based on past performance. For example, state program directors noted that "the National Office must align its review process with that of the states...It will save money and a lot of time, and eliminate the current double review." Also, "the Sea Grant development, review, and funding process takes far too long and should be streamlined and speeded up.
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From page 23... ...
The size of most programs has not changed substantially over the past 11 years. The coefficient of vanationl2 for federal funding to state programs over 9 Some New Approaches to Decision-Making in the National Sea Grant College Program.
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From page 24... ...
O L~ O CO N C\l - sp~e"`f ~o 06elUa°30d A REVIEW OF THE NATIONAL SEA GRANT COLLEGE PROGRAM U. o .............
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From page 25... ...
Factors that contribute to this perception are that the solicitation and review process does not appear to be monitored, decisions do not appear to be documented, and rejections are not explained adequately. The committee was convinced, however, that strenuous efforts continue to be made by NSGO and state programs to disseminate information, about Sea Grant goals and its proposal mechanisms, very widely.
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From page 26... ...
Although the committee did not investigate the proposal solicitation procedures of state programs, virtually all programs stated that they attempt to maintain openness by wide distribution of proposal solicitations. For example, the largest state Sea Grant program, in California, sends out a request for proposals to 1,400 "individuals, departments, institutes, and grants offices of higher education institutions throughout the state" and, in the FY1993-94 cycle, funded research at 10 different institutions.
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From page 27... ...
The federal allocation to state programs was not correlated to either the state population or the tenure of the director. Many of these programs received essentially the same level of federal funding, and presumably supported the same level of activities before they were awarded Sea Grant College status, so it is not clear why such a correlation exists.
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From page 28... ...
Matching funds available to state programs take some of the fiscal pressure off these programs, but this approach raises the issue of the balance of funding versus the balance of priorities. In view of the significant source of funding from nonfederal sources, state programs desire more flexibility to direct their programs toward the issues of importance to donors of the matching funds (i.e., to devote a greater portion of their funding to issues not in the national guidance document)
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From page 29... ...
The percentage of match contributed by industry to state programs ranged from 0 to 40%, with a mean of 4%, though the median value was 0%.~4 In part, this percentage is so low because many of the businesses with which Sea Grant interacts are small and have little money to invest in research. Many state program directors also noted that they did not use industry contributions to match federal funds because of arduous NOAA grant reporting requirements and because the industry match (often in-kind contributions)
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From page 30... ...
The 29 state programs and NSGO currently interact with marine industry through management advisory bodies, MAS, and a limited number of applied research projects. These interactions are tightly focused, limited primarily to small companies, and are not a significant source of Sea Grant program funding.
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From page 31... ...
Program percentage match has fluctuated between 40 and 47% during this period. About half of the state programs use a project-by-project match versus applying match on a pro 15 SGRP Position Paper #3.
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From page 32... ...
The group of state Sea Grant programs has spent an average, over the past 11 years, of 44.3% on research, 7.1% on education, 31.5% on advisory services, and 17.0% for program management and development (Figure 7~. These values have not varied much over time.
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From page 33... ...
: ::::: :::::::::: ,............. Fiscal Year 33 FIGURE 8 Mean Sea Grant research award size from FY1983 to FY1993.
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From page 34... ...
Finding: Level funding, growth in the number of participating state programs, inflation, and increased NSGO administrative costs have severely eroded the real purchasing power of NSGCP since its inception and are preventing the program from providing its full potential contribution to the nation. i9 The Consumer Price Index (CPI)
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From page 36... ...
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