The bill, the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013 (S. 649), is sponsored by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), expands the national system of background checks for gun purchases, toughens penalties for buying guns on behalf of others who would not be eligible to buy them, and boosts authorized funding for school safety programs.

Many amendments will be offered, including some that would have the effect of loosening, not tightening, the rules around gun purchases.  But in addition to decisions about gun purchases, the Senate may take up legislation to improve mental health services, especially in schools, in the hope of preventing violence.

One bill to improve mental health services was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on April 11.  The bill, introduced by committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Lamar Alexander (R-TN), is called the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act (S. 689).  It would encourage the development of school-wide mental health programs and allow grant funding to promote partnerships between schools and clinical mental health services.  The bill also provides suicide prevention and mental health awareness training, for early intervention to help students with mental health or substance abuse problems.  In addition, there would be GAO reports commissioned to examine access to mental health and substance abuse treatment, to look at mental health specifically for children, and to assess whether federal regulations or laws are obstacles to states’ and local communities’  efforts to provide mental health services.

The Harkin-Alexander bill is prominently mentioned as one likely to be added to the package of gun-related provisions headed for votes in the Senate.  Other mental health pieces are being introduced:  Senator Stabenow (D-MI) has sponsored the Excellence in Mental Health Act (S. 264), which would provide for federal certification of community behavioral health centers and make them eligible for Medicaid funding.

Advocates for improved mental health services want to see greater access to services, without demonizing the mentally ill.  Many advocates see these bills as important expansions, and hope that additional funding will be appropriated so that the new services can actually be implemented.

The post CHN: Expanded Mental Health Services May be Included in Gun Legislation appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The bill (S. 47)’s increased protections for gay, bisexual or transgender victims are seen by many advocates as an important human rights victory. The reauthorization bill also gives increased authority to tribal courts to prosecute non-American Indian sexual offenders who commit crimes against American Indians on a reservation. More than one-third of American Indian and Alaska Native women are raped in their lifetime, a much higher proportion than that of any other population subgroup.

S. 47 passed the Senate on February 12 with 78 votes, showing strong support from both parties. It was well known that passage in the House would be more contentious, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R – VA) promised to make the bill a top priority. On Friday February 22, Republican members in the House presented a substitute to S. 47 that was strongly opposed by human rights groups, House Democrats and the Administration due to its removal of the proposed safeguards for American Indian women and LGBT victims and its exclusion of important human trafficking protections.

The matter came to a head last Thursday, when the House took up the vote on the Republican alternative, which was rejected, 166 to 257. Following the substitute bill’s loss, Speaker John Boehner (R – OH) brought the Senate-passed bill to the floor despite not having majority support from his Republican colleagues. This is the second time this year that Boehner has brought a bill to the floor against the wishes of his party majority, inciting disappointment from a number of Republican members.

Having now passed the Senate and the House, S. 47 will go to the President. President Obama has expressed his happiness to reauthorize the bill, saying “Renewing this bill is an important step towards making sure no one in America is forced to live in fear, and I look forward to signing it into law as soon as it hits my desk.”

The post CHN: VAWA is Reauthorized Despite Contention in House Proceedings appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

A continuing source of contention lies with tribal court provisions in the bill. S. 47 allows tribal courts to prosecute non-American Indians who are accused of acts of domestic violence against American Indian victims on tribal lands. The White House has gone on record in strong support of the tribal court provision, citing the fact that American Indian women experience some of the highest rates of domestic violence of any group in the nation. Even though some Republicans have questioned whether the constitutional rights of non-Indians might be tampered with in tribal courts, the Senate rejected Senator Charles Grassley’s (R – IA) alternative to S. 47 on February 7, which would have authorized $25 million for federal judges and prosecutors in tribal areas to handle domestic violence cases instead of authorizing the jurisdiction of tribal courts. This issue remains a sticking point between the House and Senate.

Among Senate amendments to be considered is a proposal to allocate funds to combat human trafficking, and others related to fighting sex trafficking of children, cases of rape and notifications of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

Another area of contention that held VAWA back from passage at the end of last year was a revenue provision included in the Senate legislation by Democrats hoping to make additional U visas available to abused immigrants. House Republicans refused to adopt the provision, saying that it was unconstitutional because all legislation involving revenue is required to originate in the House. This revenue measure was dropped from S. 47 in hopes of accelerating the passage of the legislation.

In years past, VAWA has received strong support in both the House and the Senate. The original legislation was passed in 1994 (PL 103-322), and was renewed with bipartisan support in 2000 and 2005.  The Senate passed a reauthorization bill last year by a vote of 68-31, which extended protections to gay, lesbian and immigrant victims in addition to the tribal provisions.  With the exception of the U visa increase noted above, the other expanded protections remain in S. 47.

A House Republican compromise written by Representatives Darrel Issa (R-CA) and Tom Cole (R-OK) calls for non-American Indian defendants to have the right to have their cases moved to federal courts if there is any cause to believe that their constitutional rights had been violated in a tribal court. The two legislators wrote a similar compromise at the end of last year and Issa has gone on record saying that he believes that their current language may soothe tensions between the parties and ease passage of the House bill when it comes to the floor.

Despite these disputes, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) made a statement on February 6 that the House will make reauthorizing VAWA a priority.

The post CHN: VAWA Expected to Pass in Senate This Week; House Bill Still in the Works appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The legislation continues the operation of Promoting Safe and Stable Families, which provides services to protect children and help families remain intact if possible; it provides for foster care and permanency services if it is not in the child’s interest to keep the family together.  Also renewed is the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services program, which provides grants to states to carry out similar services.

The legislation authorizes $345 million a year for the next five years for the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program.  This is mandatory funding, which means that now that the legislation has been enacted, spending at the approved level can continue from 2012 through 2016 without having to be appropriated every year.  In addition, more spending was authorized that does need annual appropriations:  the Stephanie Tubbs Jones Child Welfare Services program is authorized to receive $325 million a year for five years, and Safe and Stable Families is approved for another $200 million a year.  When appropriations are finalized each year, Congress may choose to provide less than the maximum allowed funding.

The legislation generally continues previous funding levels, including $20 million for substance abuse partnership grants and $30 million for court improvements.  There is a new allocation of $1 million for tribal courts out of the existing funds.  In addition, there are new requirements that state plans outline steps states are taking to meet the developmental needs of babies and toddlers within their child welfare systems, better monitor the use of psychotropic prescription drugs, and stronger language about the right to education for children in foster care.  For more information about these and other improvements in the new law, see an analysis by the American Humane Association.
Coalition on Hum

The post CHN: Congress Continues Funding for Child Welfare Services appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

There was an outside chance that Congress would be able to agree on a full-year appropriations bill during the waning days of its session.  For parents needing help with child care or placing their children in Head Start, the outcome was very important.  These programs are facing a significant loss of funding as the temporary increase provided by economic recovery legislation expires.  An omnibus spending bill proposed by the Senate Appropriations Committee would have mitigated the loss of the temporary funding by increasing child care base dollars by $681 million and Head Start by $840 million over their FY 2010 levels.

But hopes for that were dashed when Senate Republicans who had participated in negotiations for the omnibus spending bill backed away from their initial support.  The omnibus, with individual line items for all annual appropriations, was shelved.  Republicans, who will control the House of Representatives and be more influential in the Senate starting in January, decided to unite around delaying full-year decisions until after the new Congress is seated.

Without the necessary 60 votes to pass the omnibus bill, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Daniel Inouye (D-HI) introduced a short-term continuing resolution (CR) instead, which would fund federal programs through March 4.  The Senate took up this bill on December 21, the day that the previous stop-gap spending bill was to expire.  The Senate voted for the temporary spending measure (a Senate amendment to H.R. 3082) by a convincing vote of 79-16, and sent it to the House for final enactment.  In the evening, the House obliged, with a vote of 193-165, sending it to the President for his signature and preventing a government shutdown.   House Members used this final debate as an opportunity to celebrate the historic career of David Obey (D-WI), the retiring Chair of the House Appropriations Committee.  Chairman Obey has served in the House since 1969, and is the third longest-serving Member in the House.

The expected House leadership once the new Congress is seated has proposed funding levels substantially below current spending for domestic programs including housing, education/training, children’s services, public health, home energy assistance, and much more.  They will get the chance to propose spending cuts when Congress has to extend funding before the March 4 deadline.

In this year of logjam, Congress had not enacted any of the dozen separate appropriations bills in time for the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1.  Instead, they passed temporary continuing resolutions.  That left three options for closing out the year:  (1) passing an omnibus bill, with complete funding decisions for each program; (2) passing another continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year, with programs flat-funded except for a small number of programs where flat-funding would have bad consequences unacceptable to Congress; and (3) passing a short-term continuing resolution.  By taking the third option, Congress has greatly increased the likelihood of significant cuts in human needs programs.

All of the spending proposals being floated in Congress are lower than President Obama’s FY 2011 budget plan.  Here is a rough summary of appropriations totals (both domestic and military/international) in the proposals Congress has considered or will in the near future:

                        President’s FY 2011 budget: $1.137T
Senate omnibus bill:                $1.108T
House full-year CR:                 $1.089T
Senate CR till March 4
(at full-year rate):                    $1.091T
Boehner proposal (expected
new House Speaker):            $1.029T

The Boehner proposal is $62 billion less than the annualized rate of spending in the short-term continuing resolution, and about $108 billion less than the President’s earlier proposal.  Even worse, the Boehner plan accepts the President’s funding for military, homeland security, and veterans’ programs, inflicting all the cuts in domestic spending.  An analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that the Boehner plan will require an immediate 21 percent across-the-board cut in domestic programs, “the deepest cut for these programs from one year to the next in recent U.S. history.”

The short-term continuing resolution just enacted includes a few increases beyond level-funding.  For example, the bill makes up a $5.7 billion shortfall in funding for Pell grants, to ensure that the maximum annual grant per student is not reduced from its current $5,550 amount.  An increase of $460 million was provided for the Veterans Benefits Administration, to keep up with the large number of war-related disability claims.  There are also some proposed increases in military spending.  But the increases in child care and Head Start have been wiped out.  Similarly, the omnibus had funding for 10,000 rental vouchers and other assistance for homeless families and individuals, whose numbers have grown since the housing bust and the recession.  The omnibus provided $830 million in new funds to process disability and retirement claims through the Social Security Administration to prevent long waits due to the rising number of claims.  These modest increases do not appear to be included in the March 4 CR.  Neither is about $1 billion in additional funding for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), much of which would have been used towards implementing the new health care law.  While omitting this funding does not really prohibit the Administration from moving ahead with implementing the law (most of the health care law’s funding is mandatory and not subject to Congressional appropriation), it may slow the process down somewhat.

Because the CR avoids most item-by-item appropriating, it also fails to achieve $10.2 billion in savings from military programs that the omnibus would have cut.  These savings are not therefore available to be invested in other services.

If the new Congress replaces the short-term measure with something like the Boehner plan, it will have to cut domestic spending by more than $100 billion, (the 21 percent mentioned above).  The cuts would apply to programs that have been operating since October 1, and so would be far worse because they could not be spread over a full 12 months.  Cuts of this magnitude will hurt the fragile economic recovery, and will invite strong opposition.  As President Obama charts his course in working with a more hostile Congress, advocates will be looking for his use of every Presidential tool to fight off severe cuts, up to and including veto threats.

The post CHN: Senate Attempt at Full-Year Appropriations Collapses appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The Act gives states the option of providing assistance payments to grandparents and other relatives who have moved from providing foster care to legal guardianship in order to provide children with a permanent home. The bill provides incentives to promote adoption of children from foster care and it makes it easier to adopt children with special needs. It calls for states to make reasonable efforts to keep siblings together in foster care and encourages kinship guardianship or adoptive placements to promote permanent family connections for children. H.R. 6893 expands the availability of training dollars to cover staff not only in public agencies but in private child welfare agencies, and for court personnel and advocates. It also allows Indian tribes to access funds to administer their foster care or adoption assistance programs.

The bill takes steps to address children’s health and education needs by requiring states to develop a plan for ongoing oversight and coordination of health care services for children in foster care. State child welfare agencies are required to improve educational stability by ensuring that children remain in the school they are enrolled at the time of placement into foster care, unless that would not be in the child’s best interest. Funds are increased in the bill for education-related transportation.

A more complete summary and analysis of H.R. 6893 from the Center for Law and Social Policy and Children’s Defense Fund can be found at: http://www.clasp.org/publications//FCSAIAActLongSummary091608.pdf .

The post CHN: Foster Care Bill Passes appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

Under current law foster parents receive federal assistance to care for foster children, but family members who would be willing to care for their nieces and nephews, for example, are denied foster care payments.  This legislation provides federal reimbursement to states that provide such assistance to relatives who become legal guardians.  H.R. 6307 requires states to attempt to notify relatives of foster care placements and provides matching grants to states to educate relatives about available programs and services.

Currently when children reach age 18 they ‘age out of foster care’ and are no longer eligible for foster care services and Medicaid.  This legislation allows states to continue to provide services for children until age 21 if certain conditions are met.  The bill increases federal matching payments to states for training personnel working for state agencies that provide services to adopted and foster children.  State plans governing the health care of foster children and education and transportation plans for individual foster children are outlined in the bill.  H.R. 6307 requires states to make reasonable efforts to place siblings together in foster homes when appropriate.  The bill also increases adoption incentive payments.

The outlook for moving this legislation through the Senate this year is uncertain.

A more complete summary and analysis of H.R. 6307 from the Alliance for Children and Families and United Neighborhood Centers of America can be found at:
http://www.alliance1.org/Public_Policy/welfare/Fostering_Connections.pdf.

The post CHN: Foster Care Bill Passes the House appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The cut in enforcement dollars is scheduled to take effect next October.  To stave off this loss before it takes place, bipartisan groups of House and Senate members have filed the Child Support Protection Act of 2007, legislation to restore the funding.  Both bills were filed on March 7.  On the House side, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) is the chief sponsor of H.R. 1386, co-sponsored by 20 other representatives, including one Republican (Steven LaTourette, R-OH).  In the Senate, Senator John Rockefeller (D-WV) is sponsoring S. 803, with 8 additional co-sponsors, including three Republicans (Coleman, R-MN, Cornyn, R-TX, and Snowe, R-ME).

The legislation repeals Section 7309 of the Deficit Reduction Act.  That provision reduces funding to states by ending matching funds that states could receive from the federal government if they were awarded incentive payments for good enforcement performance.  The effect of the match is to provide a greater reward for states’ investment in good outcomes.  It has worked, as demonstrated by the improvement in child support collections over the past decade.  Now continued progress is threatened, as states are figuring out how to manage with billions fewer federal dollars.  Ohio, for example, is planning to cut its enforcement staff by 25 percent.  Some states are expected to replace at least some of the federal funds with state money.  But the estimated $11 billion in uncollected child support already assumes that states will make up half the loss of federal funding; if states do not replace that much, the losses to families will be even worse.

The legislation has been referred to the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees.  Because child support enforcement is an entitlement program (not needing annual appropriations), restoring funds must be paid for, either through cost savings in other programs or through revenue increases.   Finding a way to pay for the restoration of funding is the biggest roadblock the legislation faces, since any number of programs are competing for limited sources of funding.  The chances for success in restoring child support funding are improved by the active role of a number of state officials in making the case for preventing these cuts.  They are joined by an increasing number of advocates who recognize that child support helps to bring one million children out of poverty every year.

The post CHN: Bills Introduced to Restore Child Support Funding appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The bill, annually appropriated at approximately $1.8 billion, provides for services including Meals on Wheels, health screenings, counseling and support for people who care for elderly relatives, and it also authorizes the Department of Labor’s Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). Two contentious areas where compromise was necessary involved the formula for distributing grants to states and the focus of the SCSEP.

Over half of the funding in the Older Americans Act is distributed through formula grants to states for programs such as Meals on Wheels and health services. The formula has not been changed to reflect the recent shifts in the growth or decline in elderly populations among the states. H.R. 6197 calls for a formula in which no state will receive funding at less than 2006 levels unless appropriations are cut below that level. The formula will likely be renegotiated when the bill comes up for reauthorization in five years.

The second area of contention concerned whether, as the Administration sought, greater emphasis in SCSEP would be on training that readies seniors for professional work in the private sector, or whether it would remain on training for community service jobs, given the barriers to work that many elderly face. In the end, the bill requires 25 percent of those trained through SCSEP to be in private-sector jobs by 2011.

Advocates for the elderly, who generally support the bill, are pleased with improvements in the bill. One in particular places a new emphasis on outreach to low-income seniors to enroll them in government programs that are utilized by relatively few seniors despite their eligibility for assistance. The Food Stamp program, Medicaid, and assistance with Medicare premiums are among the programs with low uptake rates among seniors.

The post CHN: The Older Americans Act is Reauthorized appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

A panelist of parents and families in recovery from meth addiction told of their struggle to address their addiction. Many of the questions from Senators focused on the most effective approaches leading to recovery. The families agreed that comprehensive, family-centered programs are the most effective. A panel consisting of social service providers and a researcher agreed that this epidemic is adding to an already overburdened and underfunded child welfare system and that more resources and greater flexibility in their use are needed.
Committee Chairman Grassley (R-IA) acknowledged that the child welfare system is over-burdened, understaffed and under-trained and that children are left too long before securing a safe and permanent home. This year Congress must reauthorize the “Promoting Safe and Stable Families” program, which provides the largest source of federal child welfare funds dedicated to strengthening families and preventing family break-up. The Finance Committee has scheduled another hearing for Wednesday, May 10, more directly related to reauthorization, entitled “Fostering Permanence: Progress Achieved and Challenges Ahead for America’s Child Welfare System.”

The post CHN: Senate Finance Committee Holds First Child Welfare Hearing in Ten Years appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.