Last year, Congress brought back the usage of earmarks, now known as “community project funding” (CPF), to help facilitate bipartisan agreement and speedier passage of federal funding bills. Earmarks are used by Members of Congress to guarantee funding for specific projects or grantees that would benefit their state or district (you can find ACTE’s summary of relevant FY 2022 earmarks here). They cannot exceed 1% of total overall appropriations. The House Appropriations Committee has released CPF guidelines for FY 2023, opening opportunities for CTE programs to submit requests to their Members of Congress.
While the House deadline for offices to submit CPF requests is April 27th, offices will likely set their own deadlines before that date. Therefore, you should reach out to your representatives as soon as possible to initiate project requests. All project requests must fit a few general rules to be eligible:
- Cost should be between $100,000 and $2 million, although larger projects may be considered
- Cannot restrict participants based on race, ethnicity, or gender
- Cannot be for construction or renovation, except in the case of minor remodeling required as part of a technology upgrade
- Cannot include multi-year funding
- Cannot fund any for-profit entities
- Neither the Member of Congress nor the immediate family can have a financial interest in the proposed project
- Lobbyists, donors or other affiliated parties or their immediate families cannot have a financial interest in the proposed project
Within education, the Appropriations Committee is considering CPF requests under the Department of Education’s Innovation and Improvement Fund for K-12 projects and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) for postsecondary projects. Based on committee guidance, they are seeking project requests related to the following areas:
K-12 Projects
- Project Areas: instructional services, after-school centers, curricula development, teacher training, acquisition of books and computers, arts education, social and emotional learning activities, and full-service community schools.
- Eligible Grantees: state education agencies, school districts, colleges and universities, and other public and private nonprofit entities.
Postsecondary Projects
- Project Areas: hire and train faculty, establish and improve degree programs, improve teacher preparation programs, develop and improve curricula, upgrade technology and telecommunications, acquire science laboratory equipment, provide student support, implement university partnerships with school districts, and establish research and training centers.
- Eligible Grantees: usually colleges and universities but may include other public and private nonprofit organizations.
Additionally, the committee will be collecting requests for the Department of Labor related to the Employment and Training Administration. All Department of Labor projects must provide direct services to individuals to enhance employment opportunities and demonstrate evidence of a linkage with the state or local workforce investment system.
If you have a project that might be eligible under these guidelines, please reach out to your elected officials in the House and Senate to inquire about their request process. Note that these offices will need a project description of less than 1,000 characters, a budget breakdown of the requested funds, and an explanation of why the project is a good use of taxpayer funds. If you need any assistance with CPF requests or do not know how to get in touch with your representatives, please email Zach Curtis, Manager of Government Relations ([email protected]) and Alisha Hyslop, Senior Director of Public Policy ([email protected]).
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