New Changes in the New Year
January 11, 2013
The New Year brought a new deal on the so-called "fiscal cliff." The deal, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President earlier this month, delays the sequester for two months, extends expiring tax cuts for a large majority of taxpayers and for certain education-related purposes, permanently prevents the Alternative Minimum Tax from applying to additional taxpayers, and provides a one-year delay in lower fees for Medicare providers (the so-called doc-fix).
This means that non-defense discretionary programs will be spared from the potential 8.2 percent sequestration cuts -- but only temporarily. Negotiations on sequestration will have to start all over again. This time they will likely be tied to debt limit negotiations. The Federal debt limit is presently $16.4 trillion, and the Treasury Department has already notified Congress that it is bumping up against this limit. In addition, the Fiscal Year 2013 Continuing Resolution expires on March 27, 2013, which means negotiations on the final FY 13 budget will likely be tied up in the debate as well. Given the remaining uncertainty around discretionary program spending, stations should have a Plan B for funding.
Even though Congress continues to debate the budget, the Administration is charging ahead on new ways of doing business. The U.S. Department of Education released a proposed rule for the Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) on December 14, 2012. For FY 13, the Administration requested $150 million for i3, approximately the same level as the program received for FY 2012. However, because Congress has only approved funding levels for domestic non-entitlement spending programs for the first six months of FY 2013, the amount actually available for the program this year will not be known until the Congress completes work on a full-year appropriation for the Department. But in order to make awards by the statutory deadline provided for in the final appropriation (which is likely to be December 31, 2013), the Department has announced its proposed rules and criteria at this time. This proposed rule suggests changes to priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria for the program.
In the proposed rule, the Department stated that they are now interested in supporting a "more focused set of projects within areas of acute need and in more directly addressing particular challenges." They propose ten cross-cutting priorities that the Department can use in any grant competition (without taking additional public comment) and might use in this year's i3 competition. In addition, they propose some changes to other elements of the program requirements and pose questions about potential changes they may consider. Because some of these proposed changes are of particular interest to stations, APTS provided comments to the Department, urging them to include more specific references to multi-platform digital content and services.
Stations will be glad to know that the "effective use of technology" is a proposed priority area in the rule for i3. APTS signified their support for this priority area and offered ways to strengthen it to better utilize the resources provided by stations. APTS also encouraged the Department to include specific references to high-quality mullti-platform digital content and services in priority areas for teacher and principal professional development, improving low-performing schools, improving STEM education, and improving academic outcome for English learners.
In addition, while stations regularly cooperate and collaborate with local school districts, APTS provided comments to the Department encouraging the allowance of non-profit organizations as sole grantees for i3 grants. These grants are designed to promote innovation, and nonprofits have a critical role to play. Nonprofits should be given equal consideration for these grants, based on their record of providing innovative and high-quality services to children and schools.
