SEC would get 12% budget increase in Obama budget

The SEC would be able to improve technology and hire staff with experience in financial products with an almost a 12% increase in the president’s proposed budget.

With the budget, the SEC plans to “adequately staff” its unit that investigates fraud to “address increasingly complex financial products and transactions.” The SEC enforcement division would also redesign its system for collecting data from financial firms and building an information technology forensics lab.

Investigations and enforcement have taken a front seat at the SEC. Since taking over as chair last year, Mary Schapiro focused significant efforts to reestablish the SEC’s image as the nation’s financial watchdog. The SEC’s prior regime received much of the blame for the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme and its failing regulation of investment banks.

Schapiro was pleased with the president’s budget proposal, saying, “If enacted, the president's request will do a great deal to help us keep pace with the continuing growth of the markets and provide necessary resources to support important regulatory initiatives in 2011.”

The proposed budget also includes a 55% boost for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Almost half the increase, or $45 million, would fund new authority granted under the president’s financial regulatory overhaul plan. In the president’s plan, the CFTC would share oversight of derivatives with the SEC.

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