Fermilab Budget Cut by $36 Million; No Staff Cuts Triggered, So Far

Fermilab's budget will be slashed by about 9 percent—a cut of about $36 million—but staff cuts aren't necessarily going to follow, according to a Fermilab announcement and multiple media reports.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Director Pier Oddone said the high-energy physics lab in Batavia will reallocate funds from other projects to make up for the 9 percent funding squeeze, the Kane County Chronicle reports.

The Federal Office of High Energy Physics handed out the news last week that the preliminary budget estimate for Fermilab would be $368 million—down from about $404 million in Fiscal Year 2012.

The Beacon-News reports that the $36 million reduction is made up of $29 million from the federal office and about $7 million from the sequester.

Oddone does not say specifically which projects would be trimmed.

"The reason we get a larger-than-average cut relative to the continuing resolution is that, under the president's budget request for FY13, we had already been cut to an expected $375 million," he said in his director's corner column in Fermilab Today. "We have been spending at a lower level since the beginning of the year in anticipation of these cuts, proposed last February. However, sequestration has resulted in even greater cuts than anticipated, which has required some significant adjustments on our part."

Oddone is expected to discuss the lab's current and future budgets, projects and programs at an all-hands meeting scheduled for 9:30 .m. Thursday, April 25, in the Fermilab auditorium.