Appropriations bills await Congress

When Congress returns in September, it faces a host of appropriations bills which need final action and a presidential signature before Oct. 1 - the beginning of the new federal fiscal year.

The House has passed eight bills and the Senate has adopted ten, putting them on the same pace as the last few years (see charts for the progress of county-related bills). While there is likely to be the inevitable conflicts on some measures, unlike previous years there is no discussion about political showdowns leading to a shutdown of all or a portion of the federal government.

Following is an overview of how the appropriations measures would affect programs of importance to counties.

Interior Appropriations
The Senate increases the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) Program by $6.5 million in FY98, while the House would fund it at the FY97 level of $113.5 million.

Justice Appropriations
Significant increases are slated for Juvenile Justice programs (see related story page , on the legislation pending this fall), while the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant and the Community Oriented Policing (COPS) programs expect FY98 funding at the FY97 level.

Transportation Appropriations
FY98 funding for most transportation programs is increased significantly over current levels, including the obligation ceiling, most transit programs and the Essential Air and Airport Improvement programs. A $200 million reduction in operating assistance in the House bill would result in operating assistance to transit systems serving populations of under 200,000 population being "held harmless."

Funding for all other systems would be reduced. The Senate bill eliminates the operating assistance category, but the definition of capital assistance is changed to allow systems under 200,000 population to use all funds for either capital or operating costs.

It also broadens the definition of capital assistance for all recipients to include preventive maintenance, currently an operating assistance expense. This would at least partially offset the loss of an operating assistance category.

Job training programs adequately funded
Overall, job training programs will receive adequate funding in FY98, if the Senate and House continue in the directions laid out by their respective Appropriations committees. The Senate and House Appropriations committees are recommending either a freeze level or increased funding for all JTPA programs.

The Senate Appropriations Committee recommended a substantially greater overall increase in workforce development programs than did the House. However, both houses sought to increase overall funding for the program, and funding by the House for individual JTPA programs is often better than that proposed by the Senate.

The Senate would increase overall workforce development funds by 16 percent, or more than one-half billion dollars from $4.7 billion in FY97 to $5.2 billion in FY98. The House would only increase funding by five percent, or by $184 million to $4.9 billion. Among the winners in the Senate and House bills are the adult training program, which would increase by $60 million from $895 million to $955 million in the Senate bill and by $205 million in the House bill to $1.1 billion.

The year-round youth program would receive a nominal increase of $3 million in both bills. Its funding would increase from $127 million to $130 million. The dislocated worker programs would increase by $65 million, from $1.29 billion to $1.35 billion in both bills. No programs would be cut and the Senate would fund the new out-of school program at $50 million while the House would fund it at $100 million. School to work programs would continue to receive $200 million and one-stop centers would receive $100 million.

HUD
The House and Senate have passed their respective HUD FY98 appropriations bills. In general, both either freeze or increase funding for housing and community development programs. With respect to Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), the devil is in the details.

While both bills freeze CDBG at $4.6 billion, both also increase set-asides for special purchase grants funded out of CDBG from $289.6 million in FY97 to $313.9 million in the House and $349.6 million in the Senate.

Use of CDBG to fund other programs has been a growing practice in recent years. In FY95, the first year in which CDBG was funded at $4.6 billion, approximately $90 million was set-aside for special purpose grants. Compared to the FY95 baseline, the Senate appropriations bill increases set-asides by 388 percent and the House by 349 percent. This results in actual cuts in CDBG allocations to counties, cities and states.

The House increased funding for the HOME Investment Partnerships program by $100 million to $1.5 billion while the Senate kept funding at $1.4 billion. NACo will work to get the conference committee to fund HOME at the Senate level of $1.5 billion.

The aggregate HUD budget increases both in the Senate and House bills, because both provide funding to renew all expiring Sec. 8 rental assistance contracts.

EPA Appropriations
Because of significant differences between the House and Senate versions of EPA's FY98 appropriations bills, the conference committee to merge the two bills will not meet until September.

Conferees are $250 million apart with $7.23 billion in the House version and $6.98 billion in the Senate's. EPA is funded at $6.8 billion this year, and President Clinton requested a 12 percent increase for FY98 to $7.65 million.

Unlike other years, the EPA bill is remarkably free of "riders," with only two amendments added - one to cut EPA science and technology spending and another to block spending on PCB imports.

A major bone of contention between Congress and the Administration is funding of the Superfund program. The House provided $1.5 billion for cleanups, $600 million below the president's request, but $106 million above last year's level. The Senate provided even less, $1.4 billion, for Superfund cleanup. Both bills contain strong language that rejects more funding for the program until the Superfund statute is "reformed."

Assistance to states, tribes and local governments was increased by the House to $3 billion, $116 million more than this year and $233 million more than the amount requested by the president. Included in those amounts are the state revolving loan funds (SRF's) for waste water and drinking water. Under the House bill, the waste water SRF would receive $1.25 billion and the drinking water SRF $750 million.

The Senate bill is more generous than the House for state/local assistance grants, allotting more than $3 billion, including $1.35 billion for the waste water SRF and $725 million for the drinking water SRF. Both the House and Senate severely chastised the Administration for proposing to cut the SRF's by $100 million, while asking that Superfund be granted a major increase.

(Deputy Legislative Director Tom Joseph and Associate Legislative Directors Neil Bomberg, Haron Battle and Diane Shea contributed to this article.)

Status of FY98 Appropriations Bills

	House - Passed	Senate - Passed	President Signed
Agriculture	Yes	Yes	No
Commerce/Justice	No	Yes	No
Energy	Yes	Yes	No
Interior	Yes	No	No
Labor/HHS	No	No	No
Treasury	No	Yes	No
Transportation	Yes	Yes	No
VA/HUD/Ind. Agencies	Yes	Yes	No