NIH Budget Cuts Proposed for FY19

NIH Budget Cuts Proposed for FY19

On February 12, 2018, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the Trump administration’s proposal for the budget of the U.S. government for fiscal year (FY) 2019. Under the budget proposal, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would receive total funding of $34.8 billion in FY2019. This is roughly equal to the NIH’s FY2017 budget, but approximately $2 billion below is FY2018 budget. The NIH will be required to “do more with less” as the FY2019 budget calls for the creation of three new sub-institutes to take over functions currently performed by other HHS offices.

The budget also proposes changes to NIH grant programs. According to a report in the Scientific American, the Trump administration is “seeking to cap, at 90%, the percentage of salary that a scientist can draw from an NIH grant, and reduce the total salary amount that researchers can draw from federal grants.” This is similar to a proposal in last year’s budget, which sought to limit the amount of overhead the NIH pays to grant recipients. That proposal was rejected by Congress.