Legislation addressing CCAP's 2013 priority to provide for mandatory accreditation for veterans' affairs directors has been approved by the Senate and is on its way to the House for further consideration.

Counties have direct responsibility to provide assistance to veterans through appointment of county directors of veterans' affairs. However, while a key element of veteran's services is to assist veterans in applying for and obtaining state and federal programming, by federal rule the veterans' affairs director can have direct access to applications, records and veteran information only if they have achieved federal Department of Veterans Affairs accreditation.

In early February, the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee unanimously reported SB 302, introduced by committee chair Sen. Lisa Baker (R-Luzerne), requiring county directors of veterans' affairs to attain accreditation as a condition of employment, with recertification every five years. Training would be established by the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. The full Senate subsequently gave its unanimous approval to the legislation and sent it to the House, where it has been referred to the Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee for consideration. 

State legislators are moving quickly to begin addressing some of the recommendations of the Task Force on Child Protection, which in 2012 was tasked with reviewing state laws and procedures governing child protection and the reporting of child abuse.

The House Judiciary Committee recently reported a bill to create a grant program to fund children's advocacy centers (CACs), which bring together police, physicians, prosecutors and county children and youth workers to offer a multidisciplinary approach to investigate and treat child abuse. Under HB 316, introduced by Rep. Julie Harhart (R-Northampton), criminal defendants would pay a $15 surcharge to be directed to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) for grants to existing and new CACs, with an emphasis in the first three years on establishing new centers in unserved areas. The bill was unanimously reported by the committee as committed, and received the unanimous approval by the full House of Representatives on Feb. 12; it must now go before the Senate for consideration.

The same committee also reported HB 89, introduced by committee chairman Rep. Ron Marsico (R-Dauphin), to provide additional funding for organizations using a multi-disciplinary approach to preventing and investigating child abuse, including CACs. Under the legislation, the balance of the funds generated for the DARE program from the sale of DARE license plates would be appropriated to the PCCD for the award of additional grants. House Bill 89 was unanimously reported with a technical amendment and moves on to the full House.

The legislature also took quick action on SB 187, sponsored by Senator Jake Corman (R-Centre). Now Act 1 of 2013, the legislation requires the $60 million fine levied against Penn State University by the NCAA to go into a separate endowment to be disbursed by the PCCD and used only in Pennsylvania for programs or projects preventing child sexual abuse or assisting victims, multidisciplinary investigative teams, CACs, victims service organizations that provide services to victims of child abuse, and training of mandated reporters of child sexual abuse. The bill was unanimously approved by the Senate and approved by a 198-2 vote of the House before heading to the Governor's desk. The NCAA is challenging the Act in federal court. 

The temporary extension of the federal budget sequestration achieved through the approval of H.R. 8 by Congress on Jan. 1 is quickly coming to an end, with mandatory federal cuts scheduled to go into effect on March 1. House Resolution 8 addressed the $607 billion in federal tax hikes and sequestrations that were originally pending for the end of 2012 under the 2011 Budget Control Act, commonly referred to as the fiscal cliff.

House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Kentucky) recently announced his plan to introduce a bill that would continue to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year by way of a continuing resolution (CR); the current CR expires on March 27. Rogers' plan would enact a full Defense, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs FY2013 appropriations bill, but all other government agencies would operate under a CR. The CR extension would be based on the FY2013 spending cap of $1.043 trillion, a larger amount than House leadership has given approval for, and compares against the $974 billion available under the sequester.

On the Senate side, Democratic leadership unveiled a $110 billion sequester replacement plan that supplants the $85 billion sequester and is supported by the White House. The plan includes higher taxes on the wealthy, tax revenue from oil derived from tar sands, and spending reductions in agriculture subsidies and defense.

According to National Association of Counties (NACo) analyses, it appears increasingly likely that the March 1 deadline will lapse without a compromise replacement and that any compromise for funding the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year and avoiding the sequester will be negotiated in the lead up to the March 27 expiration of the current CR.

At the state level, the PA Office of the Budget has projected that Pennsylvania stands to lose between seven and eight percent of its federal funding if there is no resolution to sequestration. Pennsylvania's operating budget includes $19.7 billion in federal money, although the agencies that face the most significant cuts from sequestration are the departments of Public Welfare and Education, as well as areas such as economic development. The Budget News page of CCAP's website features information on sequestration, including a NACo report that lists specific impacts anticipated for Pennsylvania. 

On Feb. 20, notice of the Spring Conference business meeting was emailed to the full CCAP membership. The conference is March 17 to 19 at the Hilton Harrisburg, and the business meeting will be during the Closing General Session on Tuesday, March 19.

The business meeting agenda includes election of the two CCAP representatives to the NACo board of directors, consideration of four proposed resolutions, and consideration of a bylaws change relating to the manner of filling CCAP officer vacancies. The resolutions will be brought up under the new process approved at the 2012 Annual Conference, which will include deliberation at the conference and, following the conference, an email vote by the full CCAP membership. All of the proposed action items were included with the Feb. 20 notice.