On a party-line vote of 16-14, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS-ED) appropriations bill on Thursday, following on the heels of House appropriators who passed their own version of the bill out of committee on Wednesday. Like in the House, the Senate bill also proposes level funding for the Perkins Basic State Grant at $1.118 billion, with a slight cut in Perkins National Programs ($3 million in the Senate compared to $3.6 million in the House version). The committee chose to maintain state grant funding for CTE despite tight FY 2016 budget caps, and a $1.7 billion cut in education funding overall in their bill.
Other education and workforce training programs did not fare so well. The committee proposes to cut Adult Education state grants by $21.3 million, with a $6 million cut for national leadership activities. In the Department of Labor, the formula grant programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) for youth, adults and dislocated workers would all be cut under the Senate bill. Similar to the House version, the Senate Labor-HHS-ED bill includes policy provisions to prohibit the Department of Education from moving forward with regulations to establish a college ratings system, place new requirements on teacher preparation programs or implement its gainful employment rule without a congressional reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. It’s not clear if either bill will be taken up by the full House or Senate, but we will continue to provide updates on FY 2016 Perkins funding on the CTE Policy Watch blog.
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