Posted on May 14, 2026
President’s Budget for the Corps Has Surprises – In last month’s edition we reported the President’s proposed 36 percent cut in the Corps’ budget and what we predict Congress will try to due to make up the difference. Under that number there is a major departure from budget practices in the past. It’s the new Salaries, Overhead and Related Expenses account that the Administration wants to add to each study and construction budget item, known in shorthand as the District Salary & Expenses (or S&E) Account. This is an effort from the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works’ (ASA-CW) office to provide more transparency about Corps finances as part of that office’s efforts to provide “incentives to focus on building infrastructure on time and within budget.” Separating S&E from the other costs of doing a study or implementing a project is supposed to provide Congress and the public with useful information on the assumption that S&E costs are controllable. What is more puzzling is how the ASA-CW came up with these costs.
WaterLog took two coastal studies and found that the S&E figures for each are quite different. For one, a study of part of the New Jersey coast the salary & overhead costs are 43.2% of the study’s cost while the other study of the Texas coast the comparable figure is 73.9%. We did calculations for non-coastal studies and construction and found similar disparities. It’s unclear whether the difference is based on study complexity, the miles covered, or some other factor. Congressional staff tell us they are trying to find out just how the S&E figures were derived and whether they are useful to Congress.
