Mid-November 2005
On Friday, November 18, the Congressional House and Senate Conference Committee concluded its appropriations process for the Transportation, the Treasury, and Housing and Urban Development, Judiciary, District of Columbia appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2006 and selected the lower of the two Chambers’ recommendation for the YouthBuild appropriation.
The Conference Committee appropriated $50M, the House figure, instead of $55M Senate figure.
The cause of this 20% cut in YouthBuild funding was the confusion created by the Administration’s placement of YouthBuild in the DOL budget for FY’06 without companion legislation to authorize that move, making the effort to get any appropriation at all a Herculean one. YouthBuild was saved at the last minute on the Floor of the House of Representatives by an amendment authorizing $50M for YouthBuild in HUD instead of zero. There are those in Congress who still think is is amazing that YouthBuild survived at all.
This week, while Senators and Representatives are home, please make it your fervent and immediate business to talk to them:
- Effects of the Cut: This $12.5M (down from $62.5M in FY’05), 20% cut in YouthBuild will result in approximately 25 programs closing and thousands more applicants being turned away from YouthBuild programs across the country. It puts every local program in jeopardy in a competition that already had several hundred organizations applying for about 100 grants.
- YouthBuild works –Visit your elected officials and attend any public meetings, to make this point. Take students with you. And, ask friends, staff, board members, parents of students, and others to do the same.
- Get YouthBuild is in the Administration’s Katrina Recovery bill to expand the programs in the Gulf region, accept evacuees around the country, and rebuild North Gulfport. Senator Thad Cochran (MS) and Representative Jerry Lewis (CA), chairs of the appropriations committee, will play the key roles in this bill.
- Support the Congressional Black Caucus Katrina Recovery bill that includes $200M for YouthBuild in the Gulf Coast. Ask your Representative to co-sponsor the bill .Help strengthen YouthBuild in the Gulf, supplementing the HUD appropriation, avoiding siphoning funds from other states to the Gulf, while giving important assistance in the Gulf region. To send a Free Web Fax to your Representative, click here
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