However, the Republican-dominated committee said it rejected the SEC’s contention it is significantly underfunded.
Much of the extra funding the SEC has sought from Congress over the last several years has been aimed at increasing the number of financial advisors examined annually--an effort to increase oversight of this growing segment of the financial services industry.
While asking for more money, the SEC said the number of exams was hiked by 10 percent in 2015 and 20 percent the year before.
The SEC has indicated a further increase is in the offing through the switch of some broker-dealer examiners to investment advisor duty and by using some of the additional $100 million the agency is getting for the current fiscal year for more registered investment advisor examiners.
But federal agencies are often faced with a “damned if you do” and “damned if you don’t” attitude by Congress. Increased performance can be used by congressional critics to support the argument that the agency doesn’t need more money.
But if a regulator says poor performance shows more funding is necessary, critics often argue the bad job shows the agency can’t be trusted with additional taxpayer dollars.