The Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking a 39 percent budget hike for the agency’s next fiscal year and money for a new headquarters.
SEC Chair Mary Jo White is requesting $2.2 billion for fiscal 2018, which starts October 1, versus the $1.6 billion it received for the existing year and the year before.
She is unlikely to get anywhere near what she is seeking.
A formal SEC budget request to Congress from the White House won’t come until President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
Considering that Trump has vowed to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act, which gave the SEC more duties, chances are good he would reduce the 39 percent to single digits or possibly nothing.
She made the request before it was known Trump would be the next president.
The regulator’s budget is in flux for most of the current year. The SEC has a spending rate of $1.605 billion annually approved through December 9. The Obama original request was for $1.781 billion.
In another disclosure, SEC is also considering relocating to a new headquarters. The budget request contains $291 million for building costs.
White’s request for money and her plans to relocate the SEC’s main offices are contained in a memo on the House Financial Services Committee’s website as a prelude to an SEC budget hearing it will hold Tuesday.
In the past several years, much of the money that White has sought has been aimed at hiring new examiners to increase the annual exam rate of investment advisors above 10 percent.