Shaquita Ogletree The Department of Justice FY 2019 budget request includes $229.5 million for the Office of Justice Programs’ (OJP) Juvenile Justice Programs. Funding for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention has declined to the lowest levels due to drastic budget cuts in recent years. Funding levels in recent years have strained programs to a fraction
On Friday, February 9, the House gave final approval to a two-year budget deal that includes significant increases to defense spending, some increased funding in key priorities such as child care and opioids, extends the home visiting program and adopts the Families First Act from 2016. The latter had some modifications (see below). The deal
The Family First Act made it into the CR/budget agreement after the House inserted it in their slimmed down CR proposal. The Senate picked up the package. It is close to the version that had been considered in late 2016 with some additional behind the scenes modifications added into the final version. It includes the
As part of the CR/budget deal, the child care community had one of their most significant victories since the creation of the CCDBG in 1990. Congress still has to finalize the appropriations, so there could still be challenges, but the deal explicitly included a $5.8 billion increase in child care funding with an expected split
When the CR/budget deal was agreed to it included a commitment to provide $6 billion more in 2018 and 2019 to address the opioid epidemic. It is unclear how that will break out between treatment, enforcement and prevention but that will be taking place in these next several weeks as appropriations are dealt with. Senator
The budget agreement includes a further extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for ten years. The last CR had finally extended the expired CHIP program for six years. That was done because when Congress further restricted the ACA it meant that if CHIP disappeared it would be more costly to the federal
There were a number of other important items included in the CR/budget agreement that may have been missed due to the size of the deal. $100 million is added to SSBG with a new separate section to fund social impact bonds or “pay for success” projects. The projects will provide competitive grants to states
It is looking more like the only major accomplishments for the 115th Congress will be the large tax cut package of 2017 and passing numerous CRs. As Monday approaches it looks likely that the Congress will extend FY 2018 for the fifth time since the fiscal year started on October 1. That CR may extend
Recently one of our members passed along this 2017 article based on the experiences of child protection workers in one overburdened county in Ohio—one of those areas overwhelmed by the spread of opioids. ‘It’s just horrific’: caseworkers break their silence to reveal toll of addiction on children Read the article by The Guardian, and understand
The Administration announced it will delay the release of next year’s budget to February 12. That is FY 2019, not FY 2018 which still has not been finalized. As a result the 2019 proposal will base spending levels on an estimate of what Congress will finally do in FY 2018. In all likelihood there will
