CJJ | Senate Passes Continuing Resolution as the FY 2010 Juvenile Justice Appropriations Bill Awaits Final Consideration by the Senate, Conferees

Despite hopes that Congress would complete its work on certain appropriations bills early, on September 29, 2009, Congress passed H.R. 2918, a continuing resolution that appropriates funds for all federal FY 2009 programs through October 31, 2009. Funding will continue at current levels through the end of this month, when it is anticipated the funding bills will be completed.

As of the publication of this update Congress has approved no FY 2010 appropriations bills. This includes the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) bill that provides for all federal funding for juvenile justice programs. The House completed its work on the CJS bill this past summer, but the CJS bill has yet to receive final consideration by the full Senate.

The House and Senate CJS proposals for FY 2010 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	$100
Community-based prevention	n/a	n/a	$25	$18	0	$25
Safe Start	--	--	$10	$7	$5	$10

Juvenile Accountability Block Grants Program (JABG) and Mentoring
The Senate is proposing $5 million more for JABG over last year’s appropriation. The Senate proposal would also provide $100 million for mentoring programs. The House proposed flat funding in both areas.

Title V
Of the $65 million the Senate proposes for Title V, $60 million is still set-aside for Tribal Youth, 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.

Title II
While the Senate proposes $75 million for Title II State Formula Grants, $5 million of the appropriation would 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.

Demonstration Programs
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 [1] 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.

OJJDP
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.

Next Steps
Once the full Senate passes its version of the bill, both the Senate and House versions will be conferenced in order to work out the differences and develop one CJS bill that is acceptable to both House and Senate appropriators.

[1]: http://www.juvjustice.org/position_12.html

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