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Greetings NACHSA Members!
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Federal Update: As of this morning, the House and Senate failed to reach an agreement on continuing federal discretionary funding into the new federal fiscal year. Entitlements such as Medicaid, SNAP, IV-E foster care maintenance payments, child support enforcement and SSI, however, continue to be funded. Without an authorization which expired on September 30, there are no new TANF funds, but states with carryover balances may use those funds. Most of the Affordable Care Act activities, including the marketplace and outreach and enrollment activities will continue, given those funds and many other ACA activities are either mandatory programs or have already received the obligated funds. As a general rule, programs receiving an annual appropriations are not funded at this point, including any new funds for SSBG, CSBG, child welfare services and Older Americans Act programs, to name a few.
The official shutdown memos from key federal agencies are found at these links:
In other news, the House adopted a nutrition bill which would cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $39 billion over ten years. That measure will now be combined with the agriculture provisions of their farm bill. The House cuts would essentially eliminate the use of categorical eligibility used by over 40 states and severely restricts the ability of states to waive work requirements for single individuals when jobs and/or training are not available. A Republican summary may be found here. A House Democratic response is here. The House SNAP cuts are ten times greater than the Senate approach, which makes reconciling the differences extremely difficult.
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