Higher Ed Utah

As ACTE reported in its February 1 Legislative Alert, the Obama Administration’s FY 2011 budget request suggested overall level funding for the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act, but merged Perkins Tech Prep funding into the Perkins Basic State Grant. We were extremely disappointed that the role of CTE in rebuilding the country’s workforce was not recognized with a funding increase, and also concerned about the additional ramifications of the Tech Prep merger, which needed further exploration.

As this issue has been examined, it has come to light that while the overall total for Perkins remains the same and represents level funding, the reality is that 35 states stand to lose money under the proposal. Only 15 states and the District of Columbia would benefit financially from the consolidation, although some of them would see dramatic increases. There are three separate factors contributing to changes in funding projected for each state:

• normal fluctuations in population in states that occur from year to year

• a slow reduction in Tech Prep funding in recent years due to across-the-board cuts, which eliminated a hold harmless provision in FY 2008 and drastically changed the program’s funding distribution to some states

• a provision in the 2006 Perkins Act that applies a different distribution formula to any new Basic State Grant funding to correct a problem with the previous small-state minimum

You can see exactly how the proposal to level-fund Perkins and merge its two main funding streams would affect your state and read a more detailed explanation of the three contributing factors on the ACTE Web site.

ACTE is working to determine the best advocacy strategy to pursue to address these issues and ensure that CTE programs are not harmed – either from the programmatic proposal to merge the two funding streams or from its fiscal implications. If you have thoughts on this proposal that you would like to share, please e-mail ACTE.