Under the House budget bill passed Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission would get an additional $1.3 billion in funding for fiscal 2011, a 13 percent increase versus 2010 levels. The Senate still has to vote on a spending bill, and may introduce a different version of the legislation.
In the interim, the SEC’s budget, along with the rest of the federal government’s budget, has been frozen at fiscal 2010 levels due to an impasse in Congress. Last week, the SEC said it does not believe it has the budget to implement Dodd-Frank without an increase in its funding and annouced that it would delay plans to set up its new whistleblower office as well as an investor-advisory panel, a new municipal securities office, an office to oversee credit raters and offices focused on investors and women and minorities.