WASHINGTON - In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Sylvia Mathews Burwell of Bentonville to lead the Office of Management and Budget.
Most recently, Burwell served as the president of the Wal-Mart Foundation, the charity arm of the Bentonville-based retail giant.
Burwell will replace acting Director Jeffrey Zients, who has served in an interim role since January 2012.
The daughter of Greek immigrants, Burwell moved to Little Rock in 1992 to work for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. After Clinton was elected, she joined his administration and served in a number of positions, including deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.
After serving in the Clinton White House, Burwell was president of global development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sen. Mark Pryor, a Democrat from Arkansas, was critical of how Zients ran the agency. Particularly troublesome, Pryor said on a Wednesday conference call with reporters, was the White House’s decision not to include funding for two irrigation projects in Arkansas, Bayou Meto and Grand Prairie, in Obama’s budget request last year.
Pryor has said the Obama administration had led him to believe the projects would receive funding, and then did not explain why they did not.
“They are horrible communicators,” he said. “The OMB needs to read the Constitution. They need to understand that it’s the Congress that spends money - not the president. We have the purse strings, not the OMB.”
Pryor said he is confident things will change under Burwell. He said he briefed her last week on the irrigation projects.
“She listened,” he said. “I feel I can work with her.”
Another plus, Pryor said, was that she called him personally on the day she was nominated in March.
“That’s a good way to start, that little common courtesy,” Pryor said.
Sen. John Boozman, a Republican, said he has “every reason to believe she will do well in this role considering the excellent track record of results she has produced throughout her career.”
Last year, the Wal-Mart Foundation made $959 million in cash and “in-kind” donations - which included donations of food, water and other necessities to emergency victims. In 2012, the retail giant reported $26.6 billion in operating profit.
At the Office of Management and Budget, Burwell will oversee a much larger budget. Each year the Office of Management and Budget presents the president’s budget proposal, a set of three thick books of tables and annexes showing how the president plans to spend trillions in taxpayer money. This month, Obama proposed a $3.77 trillion budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 The budget office is also in charge of drafting official White House positions on all legislation pending in Congress.
Wal-Mart’s Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke said Burwell “knows how to get things done.”
“Sylvia understands business and the role that it, along with government and civil society must play to build a strong economy,” he said in a statement.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 04/25/2013