Senate Appropriators Divided on FY 15 Funding Levels for Education

The Senate Appropriations Committee recently approved a measure that caps federal discretionary funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2015. The $1.014 trillion total is consistent with the overall spending limit agreed to in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and the level approved by the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month. However, when the Senate appropriators determined how to divide that total among the 12 appropriations bills, the allocation for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, known as a 302(b) allocation, was set at $156.8 billion—$1 billion above the House endorsed level and equivalent to the current level for FY 2014. The Senate 302(b) allocations were passed on a party-line vote of 16-14, with Republican members of the committee opposing the Democrat majority. From this amount, the appropriators will determine funding for individual programs, including Perkins, in the coming months.