Senate Moves to Prop Up AmeriCorps

Posted by on July 4, 2003

[posted from Philanthropy News Digest]

Senate Moves to Prop Up AmeriCorps

A bipartisan group of senators is pushing the White House to support additional funding for AmeriCorps (<a href="http://www.americorps.org/">http://www.americorps.org/</a>) and approve legislation that would prevent massive cuts in the national service program by resolving an accounting dispute, the Washington Post reports.

AmeriCorps announced earlier this week that due to budget cutbacks and the accounting problem, the agency might not be able to fill the 50,000 full-time volunteer slots already approved by Congress, and that the number of participants in its biggest program would likely drop by 80 percent. In response, Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) have introduced legislation that would fix the bookkeeping problem. But although that bill has the support of the Bush administration, a $200 million supplemental spending proposal does not.

While the administration’s 2004 budget proposed expanding the AmeriCorps volunteer rolls from 50,000 to about 75,000, a spokesman for Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), who is backing the measure, said the White House had shifted its definition of participants from full-time to part-time. In a letter to the president, Bayh and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pleaded for White House support. "Without a supplemental appropriation, this dramatic decrease in AmeriCorps positions will be devastating to volunteers and the people who rely on their help," the letter said. "It is also likely to damage, if not destroy, the infrastructure of many small programs, which do not have the resources to sustain a significant cut to their budget for even one year."

Milbank, Dana. "Senators Try to Stem AmeriCorps Cuts." Washington Post 06/19/03.
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10882-2003Jun18.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10882-2003Jun18.html</a>

<a href="http://fdncenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=36800016">http://fdncenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id=36800016</a>