This Week on the Hill
The House and Senate are on a two-week recess; both chambers return the week of April 9.
Election Assistance Commission Announces $380 Million in Grant Funds
On Thursday the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) announced the availability of $380 million in 2018 HAVA Election Security Fund grants, as approved in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill (P.L. 115-141). The grants will support election activities to improve the administration of elections, including to enhance election technology and make election security improvements. To determine the amount of grant funding available for each state and territory, the EAC used a voting age population formula. A payment chart and additional information on the grants can be found here. States are required to match 5 percent of these funds awarded within two years of receiving federal funds.
2020 Census to Ask Citizenship Question, New Report Examines Cost of Undercount
Last Monday the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that a question on citizenship status will be reinstated to the 2020 decennial census questionnaire. The memorandum to the Census Bureau can be found here. According to the news release, the citizenship question will be the same as the one that is asked on the yearly American Community Survey. As of last week, at least 12 states signaled they would sue to block the addition of the citizenship question, with a multistate lawsuit led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman; the states say asking about citizenship would violate the Constitution and could depress responses, resulting in an undercount. Census results are used to draw political boundaries and to allocate hundreds of billions in federal grants. A recent report from George Washington University looks at the fiscal impact of a census undercount to states.
EPA Report Identifies Drinking Water Needs
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment, which shows a total 20-year capital improvement need of $472.6 billion. This estimate represents Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF)-eligible infrastructure projects necessary from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2034 for water systems to continue to provide safe drinking water to the public. EPA conducted five previous assessments in 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011; the 2015 assessment reveals a 10 percent increase in the estimate of total national need with survey data indicating the largest increase in rehabilitation and replacement needs for existing infrastructure, specifically in the water transmission and distribution project category. Chapter 2 of the report highlights state need by project category and system size. The results presented in this report will determine the allocation of DWSRF capitalization grants and factor into the allocation of the tribal set-aside funding to EPA regional offices for federal fiscal years 2018 through 2021.
School Safety Commission Holds First Meeting
After announcing the membership of the Federal School Safety Commission, chaired by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the commission held its first meeting last week. The commission includes Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and has been charged with quickly providing meaningful and actionable recommendations to keep students safe at school. The organizational meeting was held March 28 and the commission discussed staffing, the timeline for future meetings with stakeholders, coordination with state and local partners, the scope of the commission’s work, and how best to incorporate stakeholder input on the issue areas the President directed the commission to study. Also last week, the National Center for Education Statistics released its 2017 Indicators of School Crime and Safety report, which found that the percentages of public schools recording incidents of crime and reporting incidents to the police were lower in 2015-16 than in every prior survey year.
ACF Releases CSBG and SSBG Allocations
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families recently released allocation updates on two grants: the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). First, the CSBG update focuses on the fourth allocation of funds being released for funding through March 23, which totals $82.4 billion. Second, the SSBG update focuses on allocations through March 23, based on the previous year’s SSBG allocation. Final fiscal year 2018 award amounts will be determined after passage of a full year appropriation, which occurred on March 23.
President Releases Management Agenda
Recently, the administration released the President’s Management Agenda, which lays out a long-term vision for modernizing the federal government in key areas that will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of federal agencies. The administration will focus on modernizing three key drivers of transformation: IT modernization; data, accountability, and transparency; and a modern workforce. The management agenda establishes several cross-agency priority goals for each of the three key areas, led by an interagency team of senior federal staff. Goals include improving customer experience, results-oriented accountability for grants, getting payments right, and modernizing infrastructure permitting. The full agenda can be found here.
Recently Released Reports
The Effect of the TCJA Individual Income Tax Provisions Across Income Groups and Across the States
Tax Policy Center
State Higher Education Finance Fiscal Year 2017
State Higher Education Executive Officers Association
HIV and the Opioid Epidemic: 5 Key Points
Kaiser Family Foundation
Guiding Principles: State Efforts to Bolster Instructional Leadership
New America
Economic News
Third Estimate Shows GDP Increased More in Fourth Quarter 2017
Recently released data from the Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2017. Gross domestic product is the value of the goods and services produced by the nation’s economy less the value of goods and services used up in production. This information is based on the “third” estimate, which is derived from more complete source data than were available for the “second” estimate issued last month, which showed an increase of 2.5 percent. For the third estimate of the fourth quarter, the general picture of economic growth remains the same while personal consumption expenditures (PCE) and private inventory investment were revised up. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 3.2 percent. The deceleration in real GDP growth in the fourth quarter reflected a downturn in private inventory investment that was partly offset by accelerations in PCE, exports, state and local government spending, nonresidential fixed investment, and federal government spending and an upturn in residential fixed investment.
Unemployment Rates Stable in 43 States in February
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that most regional and state unemployment rates saw little change in February; 43 states and the District of Columbia had stable unemployment rates and 7 states had lower rates. Compared to one year earlier, 35 states and the District of Columbia had little or no change, while 15 states had jobless rate decreases. The national unemployment rate was unchanged from January at 4.1 percent but was 0.6 percentage point lower than in February 2017. Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 11 states in February and was essentially unchanged in 39 states and the District of Columbia. Over the year, 24 states added nonfarm payroll jobs and 26 states and the District were essentially unchanged. In February, four states set new series lows for unemployment rates (all state series begin in 1976). In total, 18 states had unemployment rates lower than the U.S. figure of 4.1 percent, while 9 states and the District had higher rates and 23 states had rates that were not appreciably different from the national rate.