By Larry Jones
March 5, 2007

In a significant show of support for local governments, Congress approved a Joint Funding Resolution on February 14 that provides increases for a number of key city priorities, including law enforcement, housing, education, community health centers, Head Start, energy efficiency and clean water. While Congress decided to fund most programs at or below last year’s funding level, an exception was made for these and a few other programs. The so called continuing resolution was signed by the President on February 15 and will provide funding for most federal agencies and programs through the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on September 30. Ordinarily Congress aims to complete action on final spending bills before the October 1 start of the federal fiscal year. But last year members missed the opportunity due in large part to partisan disagreement.

In a February 28 press release Conference of Mayors President Trenton (NJ) Mayor Douglas H. Palmer said “We are encouraged by the recent actions of the House and Senate leadership and the Appropriations Committee Chairs in increasing funding for some of our key priorities…” Palmer was particularly pleased that Congress decided to reverse a trend of reducing funds for law enforcement, housing and many other key city priorities. In law enforcement Congress decided to increase funds for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) from $472 million to $542 million, an increase of $70 million or 15 percent. The Byrne Justice Assistance Formula Grant was also funded at $520 million, an increase of $109 million. Commenting on these increases Palmer said “we commend Congress for increasing funds to fight crime, which is the first step in restoring federal-local partnership.”

In the area of housing, Congress approved $3.8 billion, an increase of $300 million for public housing subsidies, to help restore staff levels, maintenance activities, elderly service coordinators, security officers and equipment (see box below). Congress also decided to fund the Section 8 Tenant-Based Program at $15.9 billion, an increase of $502 million and the Section 8 Project-Based Program at $5.9 billion, an increase of $939 million which in both cases will allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to renew housing vouchers currently in use by individuals and families. Palmer commended Congress for increasing funds for the public housing subsidies and pointed out that it is a priority in the Mayor’s 10-Point Plan which was adopted at the Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting last January and discussed extensively with congressional leaders. “We are pleased to see such quick legislative action,” he said.

Congress also approved $1.9 billion for community health centers, an increase of $206 million which will be used to finance 300 new or expand health centers that serve an estimated 1.2 million new patients. For Ryan White Care Grants, Congress approved $1.2 billion, and increase of 76 million which fully funds the program at it’s authorized level.

The Head Start program, which provides early childhood education to children from low-income families, was approved at $6.9 billion, an increase of $104 million which will help prevent a drop in Head Start enrollments. A new program, Title I School Improvement Fund was funded at $125 million to provide targeted assistance to 6700 schools that failed to meet No Child Left Behind requirements during the 2005 – 2006 school-year. Funds for Pell Grants were increased to $13.6 billion, an increase of $615 million to help over 5.3 million students pay for rising college expenses.

The Clean Water State Revolving Fund was approved at $1 billion, an increase of $197 million, which will be used to help fund additional water and waste water infrastructure projects in every state. Although this reverses the downward trend that the program has experienced over the last several years, it is still $266 million below the funding level approved in 2004. Funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy resources was approved at $1.5 billion, an increase of $300 million to accelerate research and development activities for renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.