Appropriations Bill Signed
Date Posted: 03/12/2009
NHSA Legislative Alert
FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Bill Signed Into Law
As we noted in the most recent Legislative Update, Congress has been working on an omnibus appropriations bill to fund the federal government for fiscal year 2009. (Recall that the government has been operating under a "Continuing Resolution" since the last fiscal year ended).
We have some good news to report:
On February 25th, the House introduced and voted on HR. 1105, the omnibus appropriations bill for FY 2009. The bill passed the House 245-178. Roll call for House votes can be found at: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll086.xml. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday March 10th by a voice vote after a 62-35 vote to invoke cloture (which cut off debate on the bill). The roll call vote on cloture can be found at: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00096. On Wednesday March 11, 2009, President Obama signed the FY 2009 omnibus appropriations bill into law.
The FY 2009 appropriation includes $7,112,786,000 for "making payments under the Head Start Act." It reserves $2,000,000 of that amount to fund Section 657B of the Head Start Act (Centers of Excellence in Early Childhood). The Centers of Excellence funding is "to remain available through September 30, 2010."
The $7.1 billion for FY 2009 for Head Start is about $235 million over the program's FY 2008 appropriation and is separate from the $2.1 billion that Head Start and Early Head Start just received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the "stimulus").