The new Federal fiscal year began October 1.  However, Congress has still not passed major appropriations bills to send to the President for his signature.  This includes the Labor HHS Education bill which is where funding for the Perkins Act is included.   The House of Representatives passed their Labor HHS Education bill on July 24. It includes flat funding for all programs authorized under the Perkins Act.   The Senate has not yet voted on their version of the bill.  It has only gotten as far as approval by the Senate Appropriations Committee on July 30.  That bill also includes flat funding for Perkins, so it is almost certain that we will see no increase in Perkins funding for FY 10. 

The Senate hopes to move the Labor HHS Education bill and their other remaining appropriations bills through the Senate floor before the end of the month.  Right now all Federal programs funded by bills which are not yet signed into law by the President (which includes 11 of the 12 appropriations bills) are being funded by a stop gap continuing resolution which will fund the government until October 31.  If Congress fails to get all of their bills passed by October 31, another continuing resolution will be passed to keep the government running.

Tags: advocacy, Congress, funding

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 7:49 am and is filed under Legislation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.