Government Relations Update Today, September 30, is the last day of Fiscal Year 2013. Last Friday, the Senate amended the House-passed continuing resolution to level-fund the government by stripping out provisions that would have defunded “Obamacare” and limited payments after the country reached its debt ceiling in mid-October. In a rare Saturday session, the House took up the amended legislation and added in a yearlong delay of major portions of Obamacare as well as a repeal of other provisions of the law. This afternoon, Senate Democrats are expected to reject these provisions and send the measure back to the House (where it is expected to be rejected by House Republicans). As legislation to keep the government funded past midnight tonight continues to volley between the Senate and the House, it appears all but certain that a government shutdown WILL occur, even if only for a shortwhile. The primary point of contention is not the amount of federal spending. Both chambers agree that – at least in the short-term, level-spending is best. The real issue is Obamacare, which is scheduled to take effect on October 1, 2013. For your information, USA Today offers this succinct Q&A about the potential shutdown and its relationship to the debt ceiling, Obamacare, and other relevant matters. (66 questions and answers about the government shutdown) For specific details about how the shutdown will impact TRIO programs, please read the notice below. **Government Shutdown Update** (first published 9/27/13) In light of the pending government shutdown, COE has received a number of calls from TRIO programs about how this would affect them. TRIO programs are forward funded programs and therefore their monies were committed for this 2013-2014 year in the FY 2013 appropriations. Therefore, these monies will remain available and all programs will continue to proceed as normal. If the government does shut down, most of the Department of Education personnel will be on leave but the g5 system that finance offices use to drawdown monies will not shut down because of this. In fact, we were informed that the G5 system notified its users some time ago that it will be down between September 30 through October 4 due to maintenance. (language on from G5. G5 will be unavailable to all users at 7:00 PM on Thursday, October 3, 2013 until 6:00 AM on Friday, October 4, 2013.) For more detailed information about the pending government shut down, please review the contingency plan posted today on the Department of Education website at www2.ed.gov/about/furlough2013/index.html.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 16:55:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015