appropriations

California’s Senate Bill 12, which would expand benefits and support for transition-age foster youth who have also been involved with probation, was sidelined in late August. The bill was cosponsored by Senator Jim Beall (D) and the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center, and would ensure that foster youth who end up in the justice system when they become adults have access to the same transition assistance that their peers do.

This week’s Senate Judiciary Committee “Compliance-Gate” hearing on Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention grants brought a relatively bureaucratic kerfuffle into the political theater.  It isn’t every day that an assistant attorney general testifies at the same hearing as two of her employees, and is asked by a senator – Judiciary Chair Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) – to vow she will not punish them in any way.

As we do each year, The Imprint has compiled a chart for subscribers breaking down all of the president’s youth-related requests for this fiscal year. This chart takes subscribers through all of the child welfare and juvenile justice funding requested by the president, along with other selected lines related to family services or disadvantaged youths.

The last time the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) was authorized, President George W. Bush’s approval rating was still hovering around 70 percent and the Boston Red Sox most recent World Series win was in 1918.

Note: This piece was updated on January 16 We may have an actual piece of legislation that sets federal spending for 2014. Both chambers have passed the $1.1 trillion spending bill, and it is hard to imagine a scenario where President Barack Obama wouldn’t sign a bipartisan agreement.

The first Congressional move on Justice Department spending for fiscal 2014 includes yet another steep round of cuts to juvenile justice appropriations, and recommends a low appropriation for the federal contribution to the nonprofit National Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA).

With the ongoing uncertainty over the debt ceiling increase and the across-the-board cuts looming with the March sequestration, the entire traditional and legally-required timetable for next year’s budget have fallen by the wayside. 

On Thursday, January 3, 2013 the new congress began minutes after the 112th ended.  The 113th Congress includes many new faces and slightly different numbers, but it also began with the first of many carry-over issues.

Heading into their last week of work before the August break, it looks like Congress may reach a deal to provide six months of funding through a continuing resolution (CR) for FY 2013 in lieu of enacting 12 separate appropriations bills.