NACHSA 2014 Dues are due, please click here to access the invoice. Thank you for your support!  

Federal Update: The House and Senate have adjourned for the year and will return to Washington the week of January 6. Before they left town, the House and Senate adopted a bipartisan budget blueprint for the remainder of this year and FFY 2015 which lessens the impact of sequestration cuts during that time. The budget now gives the appropriations committees the authority to begin to allocate overall pots of funding to the 12 subcommittees so that they may apportion the funds among the federal discretionary programs. Those decisions must be made by January 15 when the current continuing resolution expires. While there is no chance of another government shutdown, there is little time remaining to enact separate bills. A more likely scenario, especially for HHS spending, is a number of bills will be combined into an omnibus measure. There is little likelihood of significant cuts or increases, but funding levels will not be known until the new year.

Unfortunately, the budget agreement continues the across-the-board cuts to a whole host of 'mandatory' programs not otherwise subject to the appropriations process. The Social Services Block Grant falls into that category, so, at this stage, the cuts that were triggered earlier in the year will remain. NACHSA will work with other organizations to urge that the provision be modified to exempt SSBG, but such a reversal will be an uphill battle, given that the bill assumes savings from mandatory programs to lessen or remove the impact of sequestration on many other domestic discretionary programs which must be appropriated each year. 

Congress also left without completing action on the farm bill. House and Senate leaders indicate that a compromise bill is nearly complete and the details may be released in early January. Cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program appear to be in the range of $8 billion over ten years by accepting the House cut to the Heat and Eat option 16 states have used to provide a nominal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance grant to trigger a standard utility allowance which expands eligibility or increases SNAP benefits. The only SNAP cut the Senate bill contained was a smaller Heat and Eat cut. The overall House bill would have cut SNAP by $40 billion.  

An extension of emergency unemployment insurance was also left undone. Beginning December 27, 1.3 million individuals will lose their benefits. There may be action early in January to restore the UI cut, but such a bill would require finding or otherwise recognizing that an extension costs $25 billion over the next year. Click here to see how the cut affects your state. 

And, last week, the Senate Finance Committee marked up a discussion draft  of the Supporting At-Risk Children Act. The measure contains three sections: a reauthorization of the adoption incentives program, similar to what the House passed earlier in the year; changes to child welfare policies, including responses  to youth sex trafficking which have not yet been addressed in the House; and, changes to the child support program, some of which were adopted by the full House earlier in the year. The Senate bill is likely to be separated and acted upon in three separate bills. The actual legislative language is not yet available.

The County Welfare Directors Association of California is searching to an Information Technology Associate. Please apply by January 15.