WASHINGTON – A faint opportunity to give AmeriCorps, a nationwide volunteer service organization, a $100 million boost came and went Friday.
Majority and minority members of the U.S. House of Representatives, which is out of session until Sept. 2, met Friday in a pro forma session to address a variety of technical matters on bills, said Elizabeth B. Wenk, communications director for U.S. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe.
However, they didn’t reconsider their July 25 vote that passed the final $984 million fiscal year 2003 Supplemental Spending Bill without the $100 million inclusion.
“I will continue to fight for the inclusion of $100 million … which will provide additional positions for AmeriCorps volunteers in Maine,” Snowe said in a July 28 press release. “Our goal is to reach the same level of participation that we had last year.”
The AmeriCorps cuts resulted because of nationwide funding cuts, past accounting problems with AmeriCorps’ parent agency, the Corporation for National Service, and a 50,000 cap on volunteers imposed by Congress this year.
Without the emergency funding, Maine will have 40 AmeriCorps volunteers next year instead of the 163 it had last year.
Wenk said another opportunity to resuscitate AmeriCorps and its programs in Maine looms next month when both the U.S. House and Senate return to session.
At that time, Snowe and others will place the $100 million emergency AmeriCorps bill before Congress when work begins in early September on the Veterans-Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill, through which funding for AmeriCorps comes, Wenk said.
“Our next fight will be the VA HUD Bill because the leaders in the House don’t like AmeriCorps and paying volunteers with federal dollars,” Wenk said Friday evening. “But there is such strong support in the Senate for AmeriCorps. However, we expect to see wider support (for AmeriCorps next month) in the House on a traditional bill like the VA HUD Bill.”
If both the House and Senate pass the Veterans Administration Housing and Urban Development Bill with the $100 million inclusion in September, the program won’t be funded until Oct. 1 at the earliest, she added.
Until then, Wenk said AmeriCorps and its Maine programs will continue to see an “anemic funding stream.”
tkarkos@sunjournal.com
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