March Government Relations Report: "Skinny Budget" Edition
This morning the Trump administration released its so-called "Skinny Budget" for fiscal years 2017 and 2018. This abbreviated budget (hence the nickname "skinny") highlighted several administration initiatives and an extensive list of budget cuts to non-defense discretionary programs that are intended to pay for those initiatives.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the budget would cut non-defense discretionary funding for FY 2017 (which expires on September 30) by $15 billion and another $54 billion in FY 2018. All of these funds are shifted to defense.
The Trump budget increases only the Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Departments. Every other department is cut by an average of about 15 percent below current levels. The budget does not offer any guidance about where the FY 2017 cuts are to come from.
There is much that this budget does not tell us. Many cuts are, as yet, unspecified. The budget cuts funds for the Department of Education by about $9 billion or 13.5 percent below the level in the continuing resolution now in effect, but the document identifies $4.9 billion of cuts, so that is about $4 billion in cuts which the administration assumes but doesn't name.
The Education Department budget includes some increases to fund administration initiatives as well as cuts to offset those increases. The budget does not mention adult education, but that does not mean that the administration does not support cuts in the program.
- Increases investments in public and private school choice by $1.4 billion compared to the 2017 annualized CR level.
- Includes a $168 million increase (in 2018) for charter schools, $250 million for a new private school choice program, and a $1 billion increase for Title I, dedicated to encouraging districts to adopt a system of student-based budgeting and open enrollment that enables federal, state, and local funding to follow the student to the public school of his or her choice.
- Maintains approximately $13 billion in funding for IDEA programs to support students with special education needs.
- Eliminates the $2.4 billion Supporting Effective Instruction State Grants program, which is poorly targeted and spread thinly across thousands of districts with scant evidence of impact.
- Eliminates the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which supports before and after school programs as well as summer programs, resulting in savings of $1.2 billion from the 2017 annualized CR level.
- Eliminates the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program.
- Freezes the Pell Grant program by funding the discretionary appropriation while proposing a cancellation of $3.9 billion from unobligated carryover funding.
- Supports historically black colleges and universities and minority-serving institutions at $492 million.
- Reduces Federal Work-Study significantly.
- Provides $808 million for the Federal TRIO programs and $219 million for GEAR UP, resulting in savings of $193 million from the 2017 annualized CR level.
- Eliminates or reduces over 20 categorical programs that do not address national needs, duplicate other programs, or are more appropriately supported with state, local, or private funds, including Striving Readers, Teacher Quality Partnership, Impact Aid Support Payments for Federal Property, and International Education programs.
In addition, the budget requests $9.6 billion for the Department of Labor, a $2.5 billion or 21 percent decrease from the 2017 annualized CR level. Details are particularly thin, but the budget proposes to cut "funding for ineffective, duplicative, and peripheral job training grants." It also "decreases federal support for job training and employment service formula grants, shifting more responsibility for funding these services to states, localities, and employers" and "helps states expand apprenticeship, an evidence-based approach to preparing workers for jobs."
As Franklin D. Roosevelt once said, "It is the duty of the president to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose." In the final analysis, decisions about funding will ultimately be made by Congress through the appropriations process.
We are now at the stage in the process where Congress begins consideration of the president's budget. Congress will hear from the public and weigh the impact of each of these proposed cuts on districts and states and make its conclusions accordingly.The appropriations committees will hold hearings with administration representatives and seek to learn more details about administration priorities.
The president's budget is the beginning of the process, not the end. The story remains to be written.
