New Sequester Cut to FY13
We reported last week that the Senate and House approved a Continuing Resolution (CR) to provide funding for federal programs through the remainder of FY 13. Earlier this week, President Obama signed the CR into law. Since our last report, both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have analyzed the CR to determine whether or not the enacted legislation has exceeded the budget caps. While the CBO predicts the budget caps will not be exceeded in FY13 under the CR, the OMB predicts that the budget caps will be exceeded. As the OMB has sole authority on this matter, they are requiring an additional 0.2 percent cut to non defense discretionary (NDD) spending to ensure the budget caps are not exceeded. The expected 5 percent sequestration cuts will then be made.
Since the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins) falls under the NDD category, Perkins funding will be reduced for FY 13. This means that the previous tables provided by the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) are no longer accurate. Due to the unforeseen additional 0.2 percent cut, OVAE will have to run their formulas again to determine state allocations for July 1, 2013. We will pass along any additional information to members as it is provided to us.
President’s Budget for FY14
After several delays in its release date, the White House has announced that President Obama’s budget will be made public on Wednesday, April 10, 2013. We will review the President’s budget closely to see what is proposed for Career Technical Education (CTE), as CTE was featured so prominently in his State of the Union address.
Senate Passes FY14 Budget Proposal
The Senate has now passed S.Con.Res.8, their proposal for the FY 14 budget. The budget passed the Senate by 50 votes to 49, with four Democrats voting against the proposal. As reported in a previous blog post, S.Con.Res.8 would replace the sequester cuts from FY14 with a balanced deficit reduction package. This would mean that NDD spending in FY14, which includes Perkins funding, would be at much higher levels than what is proposed in the House Budget, H.Con.Res.25. Budget proposals generally do not provide recommendations for program level increases or decreases but instead provide a broad framework, an overall cap on spending, and guidelines for where investments should be made. Therefore, the exact impact of either proposal on Perkins funding is unclear at this time.
Now that both the House and the Senate budgets have passed, a Conference Committee will be held to discuss differences between the House and Senate proposals and for compromise to be reached. After that, the appropriations process will begin, which will provide more details on how each party would fund NDD spending. As soon as more details are available, they will be shared with members.
David Beckett, Advocacy Manager
Tags: budget, Congress, federal legislation