The recently signed fiscal year (FY) 2022 omnibus appropriations bill marked the first spending bill in a decade to include earmarks. Earmarks, also known has “community project funding” or “congressionally directed spending,” are used by Members of Congress to guarantee funding for specific projects or grantees that would benefit their state or district.
Each Member office submits project funding requests from constituents, which must then be reviewed by the appropriations subcommittees. For FY 2022, members of the House could submit a maximum of 10 earmark requests to be reviewed while members of the Senate had no request limit, and the total funding for earmarks could not exceed 1% of overall discretionary funding. In the coming days, ACTE will publish a blog post on steps our members can take during the earmarking process for FY 2023.
The FY 2022 omnibus appropriations bill earmarks a total of $2.3 million for vocational rehabilitation projects, $140 million for K-12 projects, $249 million for higher education projects and $137 million for employment and training projects. ACTE analyzed this funding and found that 119 earmarks provided over $107 million for CTE-related projects in FY 2022:
- Elementary and secondary CTE-related projects received $16.2 million through 22 earmarks
- Postsecondary CTE-related projects received $49.8 million through 49 earmarks
- Employment and training CTE-related projects received $41.4 million through 48 earmarks
Of the 39 states that received earmarked funding for CTE-related projects in FY 2022, Virginia was allocated the most funding, totaling $8.97 million, and California had the most earmarks with 11 different projects funded. Specific CTE-related projects that received the most funding include:
- $5.1 million for Northern Virginia Community College’s Data Center Operations degree and certificate program.
- $4.5 million for an apprenticeship initiative at Marshall University in West Virginia.
- $3.7 million for Skills for Rhode Island’s Future, a work-based learning program.
Readers can use this spreadsheet created by ACTE to learn more about which CTE-related projects in their state received FY 2022 earmarked funding.
Comments