Legislative News InBrief

February 5, 2007

President Bush sent his $2.9 trillion FY 2008 budget proposal to Congress on Feb. 5, setting the stage for the annual budget and appropriations process. The proposed budget would dramatically increase military spending, including an extra $245 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, the proposed budget would make permanent the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 at a cost of an additional $374 billion over five years. The proposed budget would make cuts of nearly $96 billion over five years from Medicare and Medicaid, as well as cuts in domestic discretionary spending. The Administration claims that the budget will lead toward a balanced budget by 2012. However, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a report indicating that many significant costs were omitted and that the budget does little to improve the long-term financial situation.

This year's President's budget is compared with what is expected in the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution, which passed the House last week and is anticipated to be voted on next week in the Senate. The following analysis provides an overview of how the President's FY 2008 budget would impact people with disabilities and their families, with a focus on programs affecting the AUCD network.

 

President's FY 2008 Budget Request for HHS and Education
(dollars in millions)

Program	FY07 Final Estimated	President's FY 2008 Request	Difference over 2007
UCEDDs	33.2	33.2	0.0
DD Councils	71.7	71.7	0.0
P&As	38.7	38.7	0.0
Family Support/PNS	11.4	11.4	0.0
Voter Access	15.7	15.7	0.0
MCH Block Grant	693.0	693.0	0.0
CDC Center on Birth Defects/DD	124.5	124.5	0.0
NIH	28,931.0	28,621.0	-310.0
NICHD	1,265.0	1,265.0	0.0
CAPTA
Child Abuse State Grants	27.0	27.0	0.0
Discretionary Grants	25.89	36.00	+10.11
Community Based Resource Centers	42.0	42.0	0.0
Social Services (SSBG)	1,700.0	1,200.0	-500.0
National Family Caregiver Support Program	156.0	154.0	-2.0
IDEA Part B State Grants	10,491.9	10,491.9	0.0
Part B Preschool Grants	380.8	380.8	0.0
Part C Infants and Toddlers	423.1	423.1	0.0
IDEA Part D
Personnel Development	50.7	0.0	-50.7
TA and dissemination	48.9	48.9	0.0
Personnel Preparation	89.7	89.7	0.0
Parent information centers	25.7	25.7	0.0
Technology and media	38.4	25.1	-13.3
Institute for Education Sciences
Research in Spec. Ed.	71.8	71.8	0.0
Studies and Evaluations	9.6	9.6	0.0
NIDRR	107	107	107
VR State Grants	2,837.2	2,837.2	0.0
VR Supported Employment	30.0	0.0	-30.0
Assistive Technology	30.5	26.1	-4.4

 

Department of Health and Human Services
Overall spending for the Department of Health and Human Services would increase by $55.6 billion to $697.3 billion in FY 2008. Discretionary budget authority would slightly increase by approximately $100 million to $67.6 billion.

Administration on Children and Families
The President's budget provides level-funding for the Developmental Disabilities Act programs at $171 million. University Centers for Excellence would receive $33.2 million. DD Councils would receive $71.7 million and the Protection and Advocacy Systems $38.7 million. Projects of National Significance (PNS), which includes the Family Support program, would also be level-funded at $11.4 million.

NIH/NICHD
The President's budget sets funding for NIH at approximately $28.6 billion. While there is some uncertainty about the actual numbers due to the pending Continuing Resolution, this appears to indicate a decrease of $310 million below the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution passed by the House last week. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) was level funded at $1.265 billion.

CDC
Total discretionary budget request for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is $5.8 billion, a net decrease of $20 million below the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution. CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities would remain level funded at $124.5 billion.

HRSA - Maternal and Child Health
The FY 2008 budget requests $5.8 billion for the Health Resources and Services Administration, a net decrease of $242 million below the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution. The Maternal and Child Health Block Grant (MCH), which provides funding for the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) programs, would be level-funded at $693 million. This amount however, was cut from $724 million in FY 2005. Moreover, funding in the President's budget request does not include any new money for the expansion of LENDs through the recently passed Combating Autism Act.

Child Abuse Prevention
The President's budget would hold funding for Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) programs at the 2007 levels except for discretionary grants, which was increased by approximately $10 million to fund a new initiative concerning nursing home visitation services.

Administration on Aging/National Family Caregiver Support Program
The President's budget request for the Administration on Aging is $1.3 billion, a net decrease of $28 million from the FY2007 Continuing Resolution. Despite a recommendation from last year's White House Conference on Aging for increased funding of the National Family Caregiver Support Program, funding for this program was decreased by $2 million in the President's request.

Lifespan Respite Care Act
No funding was included in the President's budget for the Lifespan Respite Care Act. The Lifespan Respite Coalition has created an action alert to encourage Senators to sign the Dear Colleague Letter being circulated by Senators Clinton and Warner asking for $289 million over 5 years to fund the Act.

Medicaid
The President's budget proposes legislative and administrative changes to cut Medicaid by approximately 25.7 billion over 5 years ($13.0 billion in legislative changes and $12.7 billion in administrative changes). Many of these same changes were proposed in the President's budget last year. Proposed legislative changes include lowering administrative reimbursement rates to 50%, linking reimbursements to performance, lowering reimbursements for targeted case management, making Medicaid pharmacy reforms, and setting home equity limits at $500,000 for long-term care. Administrative changes include recovering funds diverted from government providers and retained by the State, cutting Medicaid reimbursements for some school services (including transportation and administrative claims), making changes in allowable services that can be claimed as rehabilitation services, and making changes in allowable costs for Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments.

SCHIP
The President's Budget also proposes to reauthorize SCHIP, with an increase of approximately $5billion over 5 years. However, many advocates feel this amount is inadequate and the President's proposal also aims to limit the enhanced match solely for children at or below 200% of the poverty level. Approximately one-third of states currently cover children above this level. This would create a disincentive to cover these children because states would only receive the regular Medicaid match instead of an enhanced match.

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities criticized the President's budget as failing "to provide sufficient funds for the State Children's Health program simply to maintain current levels of coverage and represents a step backward from the goal of covering all low-income children." In a February 1 bipartisan letter to House Budget Committee Chairman Spratt (D-SC) and Ranking Member Paul Ryan (R-WI), 74 Representatives led by Marion Berry (D-AR) and Heather Wilson (R-NM) urged "adequate funding" for SCHIP in the 2008 budget and called reauthorization of SCHIP "one of the most important issues for children we consider in the 110th Congress."

Medicare
The President's budget includes a set of legislative and administrative proposals to reach $75.9 billion in savings over 5 years. While many of the same changes were proposed last year, this year more than double the amount of cuts were proposed. Approximately $10.3 billion would be achieved through increased premiums for high-income beneficiaries for Medicare Part B (supplemental medical insurance) and Part D (prescription drug coverage).

Department of Education
The President's Budget requests $56.0 billion in discretionary appropriations for the Department of Education, the same as the 2007 level. Within Demonstration and Training Programs, a $6.8 million request was made for continuation costs of grants awarded in previous fiscal years. This request includes $1.4 million to continue four State grants expected to be funded in fiscal year 2007 that will help States use promising practices in collaborative transition planning and service delivery to improve the postsecondary education and employment outcomes of students with disabilities. A 2005 PART assessment of this program produced a rating of "Results Not Demonstrated."

IDEA
The President is requesting level funding for the Part B State Grant, the Preschool Grant and the Part C Early Intervention programs and cuts the IDEA National Activities programs by $64 million. The IDEA State Grant request would actually decrease the per pupil federal share of funding for students with disabilities below 17%, well below the authorized amount of 40%. That share has dropped about 3% in the last several years. The special education teacher preparation program is frozen at a critical time when school systems grow desperate to hire highly qualified teachers to implement the requirements of No Child Left Behind. A large proportion of special education students are taught every day by unqualified teachers, let alone those who are highly qualified.

Institute for Education Sciences
Special Education Research as well as the studies and evaluations within the Center for Special Education Research of the Institute for Education Sciences (IES) were level funded

Rehabilitative Services, Research
The President's request includes $2.837 billion for Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) State Grants. The President proposed once again to eliminate three vocational rehabilitation programs: Supported Employment State Grants, Projects with Industry, and the Migrant and Seasonal Farm workers program. The 2008 request would also again eliminate funding for Recreational programs. Funding for most other discretionary rehabilitation programs would be maintained at the 2007 level. The request includes level funding of $107 million for the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

Assistive Technology
Assistive Technology programs would receive $26.1 million in the President's Budget, approximately a $4.4 million dollar cut from FY 2006 and the FY 2007 Continuing Resolution. Last year the President proposed approximately an $8 million cut.

Next Steps
Clearly, AUCD and other national disability organizations will have a great deal of work to do over the coming months to both protect currently funded programs important to individuals and families living with disabilities and to restore funding to needed programs through the congressional budget and appropriations process. AUCD will be sending a letter to the House and Senate Budget Committees stating our concerns regarding the President's budget and requesting they produce a budget that will allow adequate funding in order to restore important disability-related programs. The AUCD Legislative Affairs Committee and staff will be spearheading all efforts to increase federal funding for AUCD's member programs where possible and to protect important programs like Assistive Technology and Medicaid. Updates on all of these activities will be available to you via Legislative News In Brief.