Last weeks’ presidential-congressional agreement on a December 8, extension of the debt ceiling and FY 2018 appropriations has both political as well as practical effects. For starters FEMA receives some much-needed immediate funds to help address the hurricanes. The nearly $15 billion is just a down payment and will have to be addressed again very
On Wednesday, September 6 the Senate HELP Committee began an initial series of four hearings over two weeks. Chairman Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) struck a strong bipartisan note at the beginning of the hearing indicating that he wanted to find a basic quick bipartisan fix for some key issues and have an agreement together
On September 5, the Trump Administration announced the eventual elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival or DACA. The official announcement was delivered by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It begins another “repeal and replace” debate but this time the President can repeal all on his own. DACA allows an undocumented young person brought into
The House Ways and Means Committee may meet this Wednesday to mark up a bill to reauthorize the home visiting program. Two House bills have been introduced to extend the Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program which runs out on September 30. The Republican bill (The Increasing Opportunity through Evidence-Based Home Visiting Act)
On Wednesday and Thursday of last week the Senate Appropriations Committee acted on their version of an FY 2018 Labor-HHS-Education bill. Now that the Congress has approved (on Friday) a CR that extends all FY 2018 funding until December 8, this bill will serve as a negotiating point with the House and Administration. The bill,
Child Welfare Services (Title IV-B part 1) and Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF, Title IV-B part 2) expired last year and they have a temporary extension through the end of this fiscal year. As a result of this most recent CR current funding including the court funds will continue for now. The Court Improvement
Last week the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) released a new report, The Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014: Uneven State Implementation of Key Policies. The report follows and analysis how states have attempted to implement new requirements under the federal child care programs. The NWLC report examines policy changes in four
Congress is back and the list of priorities have grown due to Hurricane Harvey. That list may have become easier or more difficult because of the need for more disaster relief. That all remains to be seen. There are currently 12 working days when both houses are in session before the end of September and
The President is expected to announce his decision on the fata of "DACA" sometime today. In June, Homeland Security announced what appeared to be an extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Later the Administration said they had not made a final decision on DACA but wanted to clarify their policy in another
Child Welfare Services (Title IV-B part 1) and Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF, Title IV-B part 2) expired last year and they have a temporary extension through the end of this fiscal year. At risk are some smaller programs attached to PSSF, the Court Improvement Program (CIP) and grants for drug treatment and workforce
