As we approach the end of the congressional session we see the great success that the National Senior Corps Association (NSCA) has had with this Congress.  As NSCA's Washington Representative, please allow me to update you on two issues-reauthorization and appropriations.

Reauthorization

After 14 long years of waiting, hoping and practically begging, finally National Service is up for reauthorization with the introduction of the GIVE Act, HR 2857.  Chairman Miller (7^th, CA) of the House Education & Labor Committee presented this bill to reauthorize National Service. The National Senior Service Corps has much to be proud of!  Although in budget size the Senior Corps is a comparatively small part of national service, we are a critically important part.  The mammoth and wonderful AmeriCorps and Learn & Serve programs consume most of the time, attention and budget when it comes to National Service.  We applaud these great programs. At the same time, we want you to be aware that we must compete with them just to get attention.

We are thrilled with the mostly positive results we achieved in the Reauthorization bill. When getting started, the Education and Labor Committee asked for a list of priorities we wanted included in the bill.   Voices for National Service (VNS) submitted to the Committee a collective list of requests for the entire national service community.  However, VNS submitted only those proposals that all of the National Service community agreed to; if there were any differences regarding a proposal, VNS did not submit it.  So NSCA asked me to submit proposals on behalf of its members, which I did. NSCA proposals included

·         volunteer age changed to 55 to be consistent for FGP, RSVP and SCP

·         income limit raised to 200% of poverty for stipend eligibility

·         allow 15% of FGP/SCP volunteers to be over 200% of poverty and still qualify for stipend  (Note: NSCA was the only association asking for the 15% "over income" proposal, so we single-handedly got this included in the bill. This was a significant achievement given that there was strident opposition from other parties. In the end, NSCA prevailed and the language was included and has remained in the bill)

Believe me, the fact that all of these proposals were accepted amounts to a great triumph for a small association, particularly when we consider the larger constituencies with our colleagues in AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve.  As you might have heard, these organizations have been greatly disturbed by several sections of the bill.  They initially felt their programs were greatly damaged by the first draft of the bill.  When we consider that powerful organizations did not get many things they wanted and NSCA got most of what we wanted, we can indeed be proud of our hard work.  

Soon we had another accomplishment. This happened when the bill got to the Committee for a vote. NSCA wanted Senior Corps programs to have improved ability to accept donations.  I was able to single out a member of the Committee, Congressman Joe Sestak (7^th, PA) who agreed to offer this amendment.  I drafted the amendment and wrote the Congressman's Committee speech to offer the amendment. The amendment passed unanimously. Chalk up another NSCA success!    

Naturally, all has not been rosy. For Senior Corps a major flaw of the bill is the requirement that RSVP programs re-compete.  We galvanized our forces to oppose this requirement.  We were in Washington in early October and met with David Eisner of the Corporation. The NSCA board skillfully voiced its opposition to re-competition. The same week we had an extensive face to face meeting with Deborah Koolbeck, the senior staff person in charge of Senior Corps issues for the Education and Labor Committee.  We discussed at length our opposition to the re-competition requirement and offered to the Committee proposed language to replace the requirement.  

Where does re-competition stand now? In recent weeks the Education & Labor Committee has continued to work with Congressman Bobby Scott, with NSCA, and others in the Senior Corps to change the re-competition provision so that it is not as harmful to RSVP programs.  We are told Chairman Miller demands there be some form of re-competition, so realistically the requirement will not be removed altogether.  Nevertheless, we are certainly pleased that the most recent version of the language is very close to what NSCA offered to the Committee.

Negotiations around the re-competition provisions continue and will probably go right up until the "Eleventh Hour" on Capitol Hill.  We feel reasonably assured all of the revisions will be in the direction of making the re-competition provision softer, weaker and more reasonable. I have to say here that it's true -- there is strength in numbers.  It is a good thing that the NSCA was not the lone opponent on this. Everyone advocating on behalf of Senior Corps programs has worked toward abolishing or softening the re-competition provision.  

Appropriations

Your NSCA successfully worked to ensure that there were no funding cuts to Senior Corps.  In October we met with the House and Senate Appropriations Committee staffers in charge of Senior Corps and educated them to the fact that Senior Corps funding has actually been reduced for three consecutive years because, considering inflation, level funding is a cut in real dollars.  We told the Appropriations Committee staffers that we need increased funding and put them on notice for FY 2009, when we plan to demand more. NSCA board members canvassed the Hill and met with their state's senators and representatives delivering the same message. In addition, the message was personally delivered on your behalf to the offices of every Representative and Senator.

In response to President Bush's threatened veto of the Labor HHS appropriations bill because it was too large, the Appropriations Conference Committee trimmed some funding from the Labor HHS Appropriation Bill from which National Service is funded.  In order to achieve those savings, funding for AmeriCorps was cut by $3.4 million;   NCCC was cut by $2.5 million; Innovation, Demonstration & Assistance Activities was cut by $11.9 million. 

It was a "tough as nails" funding climate this year and yet Senior Corps funding was not cut.  You can pat yourselves on the back. You responded to NSCA's requests for phone calls, faxes and emails to your legislators, and your actions helped assure that funding for Senior Corps was not cut!  I repeat - large programs like AmeriCorps (with lots of staff and with the VNS speaking for them) had the misfortune of funding cuts and reauthorization disappointments this year, but your NSCA has prevailed.  Next year we will go for long overdue funding increases.