Federal Legislation
December 20, 2011
With Congress finally approving an “omnibus” appropriations bill to fund the government through September 30 of next year, we now know the funding levels for those federal programs most important to mentoring. Here are the numbers:
Youth Mentoring Grants (OJJDP): $78 million
Though this program was trimmed back by $5 million, it remains one of the highest line items funding by OJJDP at the Department of Justice.
Promise Neighborhoods (funded by the Department of Education): $60 million
Funding for this program was more than doubled from last year’s appropriation of $29 million – a welcome and rare achievement given the current budget environment.
Americorps State and National Grants (funding by CNCS): $345 million
The Americorps program continues to enjoy robust funding, even though this year’s number is roughly $2 million less than last year’s program level. State commission grants were also trimmed by about $3 million from $17 million to $13.5 million.
Mentoring Children of Prisoners (MCOP) grant program: $0
As anticipated, MCOP grants were zeroed out by Congress for the second year in a row, despite President Obama requesting $25 million for the program earlier this year.
With work on the FY2012 budget now completed, Congress will soon begin work on next year’s bill in a matter of months. Join us as we engage lawmakers and advocate for continued and improved funding for these programs.
November 17, 2011
In light of the recent sexual abuse and failure to report abuse accusations at Pennsylvania State University, MENTOR is again asking Congress to pass the Child Protection Improvements Act (S. 645/H.R. 1360) that Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representatives Mike Rogers (R-MI), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced earlier this year. This bipartisan legislation, now in the judiciary committees of both Congressional bodies, would:
1. Ensure that youth-serving organizations across the country would have access to FBI fingerprint searches in a timely and affordable manner.
2. Streamline the process of obtaining nationwide background checks through the creation of a new national Applicant Processing Center.
3. Protect the privacy rights of volunteers by ensuring that the specifics of a criminal record are not disclosed without explicit consent and that all volunteers have a chance to correct errors in their records.
"These tragic events in Pennsylvania underscore the need to always have safeguards in place to protect children," said MENTOR President and CEO Dr. Larry Wright. "Unfortunately, we cannot always trust the people mentoring, teaching, coaching, guiding and simply spending time with our children. We need legislation to ensure that youth serving organizations have access not only to state background check information, but also to federal background information for volunteers and employees who will be working with children."
Two-thirds of U.S. states allow only a statewide background check. In addition, the cost of completing checks can be prohibitive for nonprofit organizations, and the turn-around time can be as long as six weeks. A pilot program called SafetyNET, which MENTOR administered as part of the PROTECT Act until its conclusion last year, allowed access to FBI background check information for mentoring programs with astonishing results. Of the more than 100,000 background checks completed, 6 percent of the potential volunteers checked had records of concern, including charges of rape, murder and extreme animal abuse. In addition, 41 percent of those crimes were committed in a state different from the potential volunteer's location, meaning a statewide background check would not have revealed the crimes.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a spending bill on September 15, 2011 that would fund the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Programs at $251 million, approximately $24 million below the diminished budget that the agency faced this fiscal year after a last-minute spending deal.
The committee broke up the $251 million in spending this way:
-$60 million for the missing and exploited children programs
-$55 million for mentoring grants
-$45 million for state formula grants, given to states on the condition that they adhere to basic standards in regard to the detainment of juveniles, and address racial disparities in the system
-$30 million for Juvenile Accountability Block Grants (JABG), which go to state juvenile justice planning agencies based on the size of a state’s youth population
-$20 million for the Victims of Child Abuse Programs
-$15 million for tribal youth
-$10 million for alcohol-abuse prevention
-$8 million for gang and youth violence prevention
-$8 million for the Community-Based Violence Prevention Initiative, a project conceived by the Obama administration in 2009
Source: http://www.youthtoday.org/view_article.cfm?article_id=5022