NCL Members, A couple of tidbits from Washington. See you all later this week. RESCISSION TIME This morning the White House submitted to Congress a package that would rescind a total of $15.4 billion from 38 programs that have unobligated funding from previous fiscal years. Importantly, no FY 2018 funding is proposed for rescission and nothing is rescinded from the Department of Education. However, the administration does plan to submit a separate package later this year that will include rescissions of FY 2018 funding that it deems “wasteful" in the omnibus bill. Still likely nothing to worry about, but we’ll keep an eye on it. There are two rescissions in the package submitted today you may find interesting, and they kind of give you a flavor of the kinds of cuts that are proposed: (1) $22.9 million of unobligated balances from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (yes, there is still recovery act money that hasn’t been spent); and (2) $150 million in prior year balances from the National Service Trust that makes educational awards to AmeriCorps volunteers who have completed their services. The Administration says there is sufficient remaining funding to cover awards this year. Congress now has 45 days to pass the package. It requires a majority vote in each chamber. They have to approve or vote down the whole package — they can’t pick and choose from the different items proposed. If it falls to pass, the funding remains and cannot be proposed again for rescission. CEF Launch of #HearOurEdStories – Yesterday CEF launched the #HearOurEdStories campaign that asks everyone to tweet a video or letter telling their Members of Congress why federal education funding matters to them. Perhaps we can talk this week about how to encourage the adult education community to participate. There are instruction on how to do so so here: https://cef.org/advocacy/5%C2%A2-makes-sense/ <https://cef.org/advocacy/5%C2%A2-makes-sense/> FY 2019 The House Appropriations Committee held its first markups on FY 2019 funding bills today, and several subcommittees are also marking up their bills (not Labor-H, that will be later). OTHER I continue to make rounds on the Hill with CEF staff, meeting with leadership. From that I don’t get the sense that we should expect any big legislative push on anything education-related for the remainder of the year. The one thing Republican offices talk about when you bring up education is the PROSPER Act — the House Republican HEA reauthorization bill — but no one seems to think its going anywhere at the moment. Sometimes I'll hear some halfhearted comments from Republican staff about maybe trying to "find a path" or something like that. It will be interesting to see the effect (if any) of the state teacher protests around the country this year in drawing more attention to education funding as a political issue generally... Jeff Jeff Carter Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr Senior Policy Advisor National Coalition for Literacy www.national-coalition-literacy.org <http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/> jcarter@literacypolicy.org <mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org> President, Committee for Education Funding Executive Director Physicians for Social Responsibility 1111 14th St, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20005 www.psr.org <http://www.psr.org/> | jcarter@psr.org <mailto:jcarter@psr.org>