Norton Grateful to Colleagues for Today's Funding of D.C. Priorities (6/25/08)

Washington, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today that she was pleased that there were no surprises today at the Appropriations Committee's consideration of the city's budget and that the Committee funded important D.C. priorities, most with increases among them, the District of Columbia Homeland Security Headquarters ($347 million); two education programs, the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG) ($35.1 million) and the federal payment for school improvement ($54 million); D.C. Water and Sewer Authority for Combined Sewer Overflow ($14 million), D.C. crime and forensic lab ($16 million); D.C. Courts ($301 million); and many others. The Appropriations Committee approved a total of $712 million in federal funding for the District, a $102 million increase in funding.

The Congresswoman took note of some of the many highlights of the bill, beginning with the Department of Homeland Security, which carries important development and job potential for Ward 8 and for the city. "It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of the funding for the Department of Homeland Security to the city and especially to Ward 8," Norton said. "For the first time in the District's history, the federal government has funded one of its most important cabinet agencies for location on the other side of the Anacostia, signaling Ward 8's importance not only as a residential Ward, but also as destination in the District of Columbia." Norton got the funding for DHS through Congress last year, but Congress later removed the funding in a dispute with the President over unrelated issues. She expects the DHS funding to remain this year to jumpstart the revitalization of Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and Ward 8.

The popular DCTAG bill, funded at $35.1 million, got $2 million in increased funding, allowing D.C. students to continue to receive up to $10,000 annually to attend state colleges in the U.S. or $2,500 to attend local private colleges. "We are fortunate that the fully federally funded D.C. College Access Act for the Tuition Assistance Grant Program continues to enjoy broad bipartisan support from Congress and the President, despite its increased cost," Norton said. "Particularly for an amount this size, however, the pay off in the doubling of college attendance here in only five years has been both quick and outsized."

Overall, school improvement received a $13.2 million increase, bringing the total to $54 million. During the brief mark up, there was little discussion of the controversial federally funded D.C. private school voucher program.

The Committee extended funding for the program, which is scheduled to expire at the end of this fiscal year, for another fiscal year at last year's level, removing an increase of $3.8 million the President sought for vouchers and giving that amount instead to the D.C. Public Schools. The remaining $39.2 million went to D.C.P.S. and to public charter schools. Norton said, "I recommended that the Committee fund the scholarship program with funds that the President placed in the budget, and appreciate that the appropriators did so and resisted the course often taken to use funds as they see fit when a bill is not reauthorized. However, I warned that such a course would have left students with no notice or preparation for the coming school year." She said, however, that we cannot afford to ignore the fact that the President requested that the program be reauthorized for five more years and that neither Congress nor its committees have reauthorized the program even for next year. Unlike authorization committees, the Appropriations Committee considers and funds matters only on a one-year basis.

It is possible Norton said that the program will be funded by the next president and if so, today's decision leaves hope that the Committee would continue to fund the program, she said. "However, I do not intend to leave a vital educational issue that requires continuity to hopes and to the whims of the annual appropriations process." While pressing the Committee to use the funding the President placed in the bill for the program, Norton reminded the city and the scholarship parents of long time, strong opposition to vouchers by the congressional majority. Just today, Norton learned of an amendment proposed to a pending Pre-K bill now in the House Education and Labor Committee to fund pre-k nationally with vouchers, based on the DC Opportunity Scholarship precedent. Committee members informed Norton that they believe that the amendment will be defeated.

The two most detested D.C. appropriation riders, the ban on needle exchange programs and the ban on lobbying Congress for voting rights, did not return to today's appropriation, despite the President's attempt to reinsert them. Norton said, "The President made a futile attempt to legislate on an appropriation by reinserting the lobbying ban and the needle exchange ban, removed last year. With needle exchange now funded by the city as part of the comprehensive health effort, we finally have a chance to drive down the HIV/AIDS rate that is the legacy of the ban. We did not intend to allow the President to revive these bans as he departs."

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority received $14 million in funding for the Combined Sewer Overflow Long-Term Plan, which continues Norton's Anacostia River priority.