Organizations: Please Sign a Letter Supporting Fair Labor-HHS-Education Funding

The Coalition on Human Needs, in conjunction with the Coalition for Health Funding, Committee for Education Funding, and Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce, is circulating our annual sign-on letter to secure a strong funding allocation for the House and Senate Labor-HHS Appropriations Subcommittees. We hope all organizations will sign the letter and share it with your networks. This letter about the Subcommittee’s share of appropriations is an excellent opportunity to show lawmakers the strength of support for vital services including child care, Head Start, home heating assistance, job training and education, nutrition for seniors, substance use and mental health services, public health protections, and community actions’ anti-poverty programs.

To sign: Click here by close of business April 3, 2020

The full letter is pasted at the end of this email.

Please note that in the interest of expediency, and as a courtesy to the hundreds or organizations that will sign, we will not accept editorial changes to the letter. Signers must agree to sign the letter "as is.")

FAQs about this letter – Below are some frequently asked questions that you can use to help build support for the letter within your organization and throughout the community.

What are 302(b)’s and why is this important? The 302(b) allocation is the amount of funding the House and Senate Appropriations Committees provide to each of their 12 subcommittees. The subcommittees then divvy up the funding among the agencies and programs within their respective jurisdictions. Each year, the Coalition on Human Needs, the Coalition for Health Funding, Committee for Education Funding, and Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce partner to circulate a letter throughout our respective communities in support of a strong 302(b) allocation for the House and Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittees. The bigger the allocation, the better our chances of securing funding for these agencies and programs and preventing further program cuts.

Why are you circulating the letter now? We understand that the House and Senate Appropriations Committees may move quickly to set the 302(b) allocations for the subcommittees and begin markups—in the House, as early as April. Time is of the essence. Our goal is to secure 1,000+ signatories – local, state, and national-scope organizations - so we may have a meaningful impact on these decisions.

Why should my organization sign the letter? Without a strong 302(b) allocation for the Labor-HHS-Education bill, there is little chance of increasing funding for Human Needs priorities. And there is a greater likelihood that your priorities will be cut. So organizations and entities that care about federal funding for all the services for children, youth, families, workers, older Americans, and people with disabilities within the Labor-HHS-Education bill should sign this letter.

What happens once my organization signs? All signatures will be added to the letter and sent to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. We will forward you a copy of the letter for your records. A copy will also be posted on the Coalitions on Human Needs website: www.chn.org

What can I do to help with this effort? Sign on, of course and/or forward this message and letter far and wide. We are accepting signatures from national, state, and local organizations, institutions, businesses, companies, etc., but not individuals.

To sign: Click here by close of business April 3, 2020

Full Text of Letter:

April *, 2020

The *** undersigned organizations – representing the full range of stakeholders supporting the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill (Labor-HHS) – thank you for increasing investments in these important programs for fiscal year (FY) 2020 and urge you to significantly boost the FY 2021 allocations to address vital and on-going needs. The programs and services funded by the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee have a profound impact on health and well-being, child development, educational and skills attainment, and productivity, yet they have been shortchanged in the appropriations process over the last decade. The bill has lost almost $16 billion in purchasing power over the last decade; it would take an allocation of $199 billion just to return to the FY 2010 level in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Even in years when non-defense discretionary funding increased, the Subcommittee’s allocation remained flat or received only a small share of the increase even though it is the largest non-defense bill. Most recently, for FY 2020 the bill received just a 2.8 percent increase in funding when overall non-defense discretionary funding increased by 4.1 percent, leaving important services and activities underfunded by billions of dollars.

We recognize the constraints posed by the tight cap on non-defense discretionary spending but urge you to keep in mind the importance of funding the long-standing needs addressed by the Labor-HHS-Education bill. Its programs strengthen the nation by improving Americans’ lives and meeting basic needs for a broad range of constituencies. The effects of chronic underfunding have impacted programs that support education, public health, health research, job training, and social services. The effects include:

• Serving 1.5 million fewer low-income people through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) in 2018 than in 2010, despite growing need, because funding was reduced from $5.1 billion to $3.7 billion over this period (and cut 38 percent from FY 2010 to FY 2020, adjusted for inflation).
• Eroding the public health infrastructure and workforce, limiting our ability to respond to public health crises and monitor health trends for new and emerging threats.
• Hindering efforts to raise overall student achievement, close troubling achievement gaps, and increase high school graduation rates, college affordability, and college completion.
• Leaving far too many low-income children without access to high quality preschool and other early learning opportunities.
• Hindering people’s access to the skills, training, and education necessary to fill jobs at the backbone of our economy and businesses’ efforts to fill the jobs of the 21^st Century.
• Preventing almost one million citizens from accessing the critical workforce and job training services that Congress overwhelmingly authorized in 2014. Funds for adult and youth training under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act were cut by more than 17 percent over the past decade, and the YouthBuild program was cut by 23 percent.
• Ignoring the needs of individuals who find themselves without a high school credential and who need a pathway back to education, employment and active citizenship.
• Failing to keep pace with growing child welfare needs, especially as communities grapple with the destructive impact of substance use disorders on families. Child welfare services funding, for example, was cut more than 20 percent from FY 2010 to FY 2020.

Without a substantial increase in the Subcommittee’s allocation, it will be virtually impossible to meaningfully expand investments in important initiatives such as public health emergency preparedness and infectious disease surveillance, supporting the Every Student Succeeds Act, continuing to improve college affordability and completion, or achieving the intended innovation of the bipartisan Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act.

We urge you to commit to improving the lives of Americans by significantly boosting the allocation for the Labor-HHS-Education bill for FY 2021 to support needed services for the American public.

If you have questions about this letter, please contact:

• Sheryl Cohen, Committee for Education Funding ([email protected])
• Angela Ostrom, Coalition for Health Funding ([email protected]);
• Katie Spiker, Campaign to Invest in America’s Workforce ([email protected]); or
• Deborah Weinstein, Coalition on Human Needs ([email protected])


Sincerely,
***


Cc: Chairs and Ranking Members, House and Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittees