FY 2010 Juvenile Justice Appropriations Bill Passes Senate, Moves to Conference; Congress Extends Continuing Resolution
On November 5, 2009, the Senate amended and passed H.R. 2847, the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) bill which provides funding for all federal juvenile justice programs. The bill now moves to conference to resolve differences between the House proposals and the Senate proposals.
Congress issued a continuing resolution in September to appropriate funds for all federal FY 2009 programs through October 31, 2009. Anticipating that it would not meet the October 31 deadline, on October 30 Congress issued another continuing resolution that appropriates funds for all federal FY 2009 programs through December 18, 2009.
The House and Senate CJS proposals break down as follows:
In millions:
FY02
FY09
President's Proposal for FY10
House Proposal for FY10
Senate Proposal for FY10
CJJ REQUEST for FY10
OJJDP
$6.8
--
--
--
--
$9
Rsch, Eval, Training & TA
--
--
up to $36
up to $36
up to $25
$36
Title II State Formula Funds
$88.8
$75
$75
$75
$70
$89
Title V Local Delinq. Prevention
$94.3
$62
$62
$62
$65
$95
JABG
$249.5
$55
$57
$55
$60
$250
DPBG
N/A
0
0
0
0
$126.4
Demonstration programs (earmarks)
--
$82
0
$68
$82
0
Mentoring
$16
$80
$80
$80
$100
$80
Community- based prevention
N/A
N/A
$25
$18
0
$25
Safe Start
--
--
$10
$7
$5
$10
The Senate is proposing $5 million more for JABG over last year’s appropriation. The Senate proposal would also provide a full $100 million for mentoring programs. Of the $65 million the Senate proposes for Title V, $60 million is still set-aside for Tribal Youth, EUDL (enforcing Underage Drinking Laws) and a gang education program. The Senate proposal, however, would make $5 million available to the states, where the House proposal only makes $2 million available.
While the Senate proposes $75 million for Title II State Formula Grants, it also proposes that $5 million of the appropriation be set-aside to fund the Safe Start program, thus reducing the amount available to states to $70 million. The House proposal would level fund Title II and fund Safe Start separately at $7 million. CJJ supports the President’s proposal to provide $10 million for the Safe Start Program to prevent and reduce the impact of children’s exposure to violence in the home and in the community. CJJ, however, opposes the Senate’s proposal to fund this program with funds set-aside out of the Title II allocation.
The Senate proposal would restore all of the congressional earmarks for Demonstration Programs, and would not provide any funding for the President’s new Community-based prevention program. The House proposal restores most of the congressional earmarks under Demonstration Programs and provides an additional $18 million for the community-based prevention program. Based on the recently adopted CJJ formal position on federal earmarks, CJJ supports the President’s proposal to eliminate the earmarks historically housed in the Demonstration Programs funding stream. The complete loss of this funding without any attendant increase in available program dollars, however, amounts to a significant, unhelpful drop in federal support for state and local delinquency prevention and juvenile justice reform efforts.
Finally, neither the Senate nor the House is proposing discernible separate and direct funding for OJJDP, a missed opportunity which signals the need for increased congressional education regarding the goals and purposes of the federal-state partnership and OJJDP.
