This week, the House and Senate are expected to vote on yet another stopgap funding bill for Fiscal Year 2017. As we reported in September, Congress approved a short-term continuing resolution (CR) to provide temporary funding for the federal government through December 9. A CR is intended to put the federal budget on autopilot by continuing current funding levels for federal programs, including Perkins, until a long-term agreement can be reached. Earlier this fall, Congress seemed poised to pass a full-year funding bill before adjourning in December, but at the request of the incoming Trump Administration, this new CR will punt important funding decisions into April.
We previously noted that the CR passed in September included an across-the-board cut to keep overall spending within the required budget caps for the year. Because of the way Perkins funds are budgeted and dispersed, the cut (a total of $5.5 million overall) impacted Perkins Basic State Grant advance funding that began rolling out to states on October 1.
Based on revised figures from the U.S. Department of Education, 30 states saw reductions in their Perkins October allocations. The cut could be restored (and has routinely been in years past) if Congress approves a full-year funding bill. Though the new CR would adjust the across-the-board cut down slightly to 0.19 percent, states will likely not receive any supplemental funds—leaving the initial cuts in place for the foreseeable future.
This ongoing budget dysfunction will not only create funding uncertainty for states and local CTE programs who need to prepare budgets for the 2017-18 school year, it will also cause confusion when Congress is supposed to begin work on FY 2018 funding in the coming months. Let your Members of Congress know that they need to restore the cuts to Perkins.
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