print
The Senate held a bill mark-up for the Labor HHS Education Appropriations bill on Tuesday, July 9th. We have been working furiously with Senate staff over the past few weeks on it and were quite happy to learn how well Head Start and early learning fared in the Senate’s bill. It will go to the full appropriations committee for a vote on Thursday and is expected to pass on party lines. Specifically, the funding levels include –

~ $9.62 billion for Head Start and Early Head Start – This includes returning grant levels to FY 2012 levels (pre-sequester levels) , an operating expenses adjustment (or COLA) of 2%, and $1.43 billion expansion of EHS (both for straight expansion and for the growth of Early Head Start-Child Care partnerships)

~ Increase of $176 million for CCDBG ($110 million for quality and $66 million for access)

~ $750 million for discretionary developmental grants for state Pre-K

Unfortunately, this really is the high water mark. The House has given no indication of when they are expecting to consider a bill. Additionally, their funding level for the Labor HHS Education area is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the Senate’s overall level by 26.4%, or nearly $45 billion. We have much work still to be done, but this is at least a positive sign coming from the Senate.

Annie Soto