ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 15, Number 59
Date: June 7, 2006

In This Issue: House Appropriators Release Library Funding Levels

Today, the House Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over several library programs, recommended funding levels for FY 2007.

The Subcommittee's recommendation included an overall funding level of $262,240,000 for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, an increase of $15,096,000. For the Library Services and Technology Act, the budget includes $220,855,000, an increase of $10,258,000 from FY 2006. Within that total is $171,500,000 for Grants to State Library Agencies, which will enable the implementation of the new formula. Also included, $25,000,000 for Librarians for the 21st Century program, $12,930,000 for National Leadership Grants for Libraries, and $3,675,000 for Improving Library Service to Native Americans.

ALA, along with the 52 Members of Congress, had requested that the House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriation Subcommittees fund the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) at the President's request of $220,855,000. 

For the Improving Literacy Through School Libraries program, the Subcommittee recommended that the program be flat funded at $19.486 million, the same level as FY 2006.   

Similar to the President's Budget request, many education programs are level funded, some are cut and several programs are eliminated entirely, including the Educational Technology State Grants and Dropout Prevention Programs. 

Reading First State Grants and Early Reading First were both funded at FY 2006 levels. The President's Striving Readers Initiative was funded at $35 million.  The President had requested $100 million for this program. 

Some of the programs the President proposed for elimination in his FY 2006 budget were restored like Even Start, which was funded at $70 million.

Also, Title V funding, which has been severely cut over the last few years, received $150 million, an increase of $51 million over FY 2006 and the President's FY 2007 request. 

The full House Appropriations Committee will consider the Subcommittee's recommendations early next week. 

For more information, please visit ALA's website at: http://www.ala.org/.  

******
ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits.

To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon.  To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 

ALA Washington Office, 1615 New Hampshire Ave., N.W., First Floor, Washington, D.C. 20009-2520; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff ; Contact the Washington Office: alawash@alawash.org ; Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don Essex, Melanie Anderson, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. Andrew Bridges, Communications Specialist. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.