Officially the fiscal 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act, the bill, which passed the House on Thursday and heads to the Senate next week, increases agency funding from 2008 levels. More important to our community: quite a bit of money is set aside for GIS.
Per MSNBC, Arkansas is one of eight states to receive money:
$1,248,000 for Geographic Information Systems - Arkansas is one of eight states to participate in this project. This funding will be used to eliminate the digital divide facing rural America by promoting the transfer of geospatial technologies to under-served rural areas.
As I understand it the money is part of $27.6 billion for interior and the environment. Here’s the text of the bill that references geospatial:
ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS AND MANAGEMENT
For environmental programs and management, in-
cluding necessary expenses, not otherwise provided for, for
personnel and related costs and travel expenses; hire of
passenger motor vehicles; hire, maintenance, and oper-
ation of aircraft; purchase of reprints; library member-
ships in societies or associations which issue publications
to members only or at a price to members lower than to
subscribers who are not members; administrative costs of
the brownfields program under the Small Business Liabil-
ity Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002; and
not to exceed $19,000 for official reception and represen-
tation expenses, $2,392,079,000, to remain available until
September 30, 2010: Provided, That of the funds included
under this heading, not less than $95,846,000 shall be for
the Geographic Programs specified in the explanatory
statement described in section 4 (in the matter preceding
division A of this consolidated Act).
There’s a bit more on the bill at FCW.
