[Dec-advocacy] news update

[Sarah Hadden]

Welcome to the DEC Advocacy List. The Division for Early Childhood  
(DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children is a non-profit  
membership organization advocating for individuals who work with or on  
behalf of children with special needs, birth through age eight, and  
their families. For more information about DEC, please contact the DEC  
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Additional information about governmental relations activities can be  
obtained by visiting the DEC website: http://www.dec-sped.org/

7/26/05

Good evening. Just wanted to provide an update of recent events. Topics  
include appropriations and new legislation to fully fund IDEA. It is  
worth noting that IDEA 2004 calls for full funding of IDEA by 2011.  
Thanks to Dan Blair at CEC for this information. Details follow.

Sarah Hadden
DEC Governmental Relations Committee

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On July 14, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the Labor,  
Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies bill. The  
bill  only provides an additional $100 million for IDEA for fiscal year  
2006. By comparison, the President’s FY 2006 budget request was for an  
additional $506 million above the FY 2005 amount of $10.59 billion for  
Part B. Last month, the House-passed Labor-HHS appropriations bill  
provided an additional $150 million over last year’s funding level. The  
Senate numbers would move the funding level for IDEA back from 18.6 to  
18%, nowhere near the full funding level. Overall, the Senate bill  
provides just a 2-percent increase for education programs over the FY  
2005 level. For further information on the Senate appropriations bill,  
go to  
http://appropriations.senate.gov/hearmarkups/07-14-05PRLaborHFull.htm .  
The full Senate will probably vote on the bill sometime in September.  
The bill will then go to a House-Senate conference committee where the  
differences between the House and Senate measures will be worked out.

On a related note, Congressman Charles Bass (R-NH) has introduced  
legislation in the House that would require mandatory full funding of  
IDEA. H.R. 3145, the Mandatory IDEA Full Funding Compromise Act, would  
set forth the same funding levels that Congress authorized to achieve  
full funding by for IDEA by 2011 in the new IDEA law, yet the bill also  
includes formulas for providing funding above authorized levels for  
fiscal years 2006 through 2011 to make up for the shortfall of funds  
provided for IDEA in FY 2005. Through the increases in funds for each  
fiscal year through 2011, H.R. 3145 will still achieve full funding in  
2012 despite the shortfall in funding IDEA received in FY 2005.  
Congressman Bass authored similar legislation during the last session  
of Congress, but Congress failed to act on it.

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