Last week, Congress approved a stopgap continuing resolution (CR) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 to provide temporary funding for the federal government through December 8. The effort to pass a short-term CR was combined with emergency funding for victims of Hurricane Harvey and a suspension of the federal debt limit. The CR is intended to put the federal budget on autopilot by continuing the current funding levels for Perkins and other programs until a long-term agreement can be reached.
The CR includes a 0.68 percent across-the-board reduction that was needed to keep overall spending within the required budget caps for the year. Because of the way Perkins funds are budgeted and distributed, this reduction will impact Perkins Basic State Grant advance funding from FY 2017 that will become available for allocation to the states beginning on October 1. While the reduction in funding will likely be very small for those states that see a reduction (some will not be cut at all), we will work to ensure that those funds are restored in the final FY 2018 funding bill.
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