AUCD’s Community Inclusion Team supports the University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) Network in partnership with the Administration for Community Living.
AUCD’s Maternal and Child Health Engagement supports the Autism CARES Programs, including LEND and DBP Programs.
AUCD’s Public Health Team works to create health promotion and public health efforts that include people with disabilities.
AUCD Emerging Leaders are a part of a community that includes trainees, early career professionals, self-advocates, and family members from AUCD member Centers and Programs.
AUCD's Disability Policy News (DPN) is a weekly newsletter highlighting federal policy issues affecting people with disabilities and their families. DPN features updates in plain language and action steps that people can take to educate policymakers. DPN is published every Friday.
In this edition:
Last week, the Senate made changes to the House-passed appropriations bills by splitting off the Department of Homeland Security bill from the other five in the package. The bill then had to go back to the House for a new vote and did not pass into law by the January 30 deadline. This caused a short, partial government shutdown for a few days.
On February 3, the House passed the Senate’s amended appropriations package. This includes the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education funding bill. The President signed the appropriations bills into law later that day. The new continuing resolution (short-term funding bill) will temporarily fund DHS at its current levels until February 13.
Next, Congress will work on Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations.
AUCD Centers and Programs did not experience any funding cuts.
UCEDDs: level funded at $43,119,000
LENDs: not listed specifically, but the Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities line item (which LENDs fall under) has a $1 million increase to $57,344,000. We assume LENDs are at least level funded based on this information.
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (where the IDDRCs are housed): increased from the last LHHS appropriations at $1,759,078,000 to $1,769,078,000. This does not give us specific information about the funding of IDDRCs specifically but does show ongoing Congressional support for them through the increased funding toward NICHD.
You can read more in this previous issue of Disability Policy News.
Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) Ensuring Access to Medicaid Buy-in Programs Act (S.3690) was included in the Labor HHS appropriations package. People with disabilities who are employed lose their Medicaid benefits when they turn 65 unless they retire. Medicaid “buy-in” allows workers with disabilities access to Medicaid community-based services that are not available through other insurers (for example, HCBS). Learn more about Medicaid buy-in in this Q&A from the Department of Labor
At the end of last year, Congress passed a continuing resolution (also called a CR), which is a funding bill that makes sure the government has enough money for a few more months. This CR funded the government until the end of January, so Congress had to figure out how they wanted to fund the government after that. This process is called "appropriations." Appropriations means money that is set aside by Congress for a particular use.
Congress has recently passed new legislation to fund the government.
In January, the House passed appropriations bills. Then it went to the Senate. Last week, the Senate made a change to those appropriations bills: they separated the Department of Homeland Security bill from the other five bills in the appropriations package and made it a short-term spending bill. The whole package of bills then had to go back to the House for a new vote and did not pass into law by the January 30 deadline. This caused a short, partial government shutdown for a few days. This means that some parts of the government stopped working.
On February 3, the House passed the Senate’s updated appropriations package. This includes a bill to fund the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services. This bill is sometimes called "Labor-H." The President signed all of these appropriations bills into law later that day. He also signed a new continuing resolution (short-term funding bill) that will fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 13.
AUCD Programs received the usual amount of money in this bill.
UCEDDs: level funded at $43,119,000
Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities (which includes LENDs): $57,344,000
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (which includes IDDRCs): $1,769,078,000
The bill funds many other disability programs at the usual amount of money as well. You can read more in this previous issue of Disability Policy News.
Next, Congress will work on Fiscal Year 2027 appropriations.
Senator Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) Ensuring Access to Medicaid Buy-in Programs Act (S.3690) was included in the Labor-H appropriations package. This bill would help more people with disabilities who are working get Medicaid. Some people have to stop getting Medicaid when they turn 65, but this legislation would help them keep their Medicaid.
View past issues of Disability Policy News to learn more about AUCD's policy priorities and how you can engage in policy actions.
