Last week, the House passed the second and final Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 appropriations minibus, along party lines. This $1.3 trillion package (H.R. 7617) included the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS-Ed) appropriations bill, which is the funding vehicle for the majority of federal education and workforce development programs, including Perkins. The House has now passed 10 of the 12 appropriations bills, which account for 96% of all federal funding.
Overall, H.R. 7617 provided a $716 million increase for education programs and $254 million increase for federal workforce programs over FY 2020 enacted levels. More specifically, the Perkins Basic State Grant received an increase of $18 million, or 1.4%, over the FY 2020 enacted level, bringing the proposed total to more than $1.3 billion. A summary of the full bill can be found here.
What’s Next?
Traditionally, the Senate would introduce, mark up, and vote on their own appropriations bills, then the two chambers would “go to conference” to negotiate and work out the differences. Once that occurs, both chambers would vote on the new proposal, then it would go to the President’s desk to be signed into law. But, between the ongoing pandemic and the elections quickly approaching, we expect that the Senate will not act on a traditional appropriations proposal prior to the October 1 start of the new fiscal year. Instead, we expect Congress to pass a continuing resolution (CR) into November or December. If this is the case, Perkins, along with most other programs, would most likely continue to operate on their FY 2020 enacted funding levels until a long-term bill was passed. If there is any movement with FY 2021 appropriations, ACTE will continue to update the CTE Policy Watch blog.
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