ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 14, Number 101 October 7, 2005 In This Issue: Support Funding for Libraries! The Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2006 passed in the U.S. House of Representatives in July, 2005. The level of funding for the "Innovative State Grant Program" Title V Funds was set at $198.4 million. This amount equaled the 2005 spending level. The Senate bill has passed out of committee, but did not reach the floor for a vote. Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated much of the Gulf Coast and there have been many promises of huge amounts of aid to the stricken area, there is real pressure on the Senate and House of Representatives to cut spending in the fiscal year 2006 Budget. The government remains open due to a Continuing Resolution which expires November 18, 2005. So the Congress has until November 18 to pass the remainder of the budget bills. Please call, fax, or email your Senators and Representatives. Ask them to tell the Labor, HHS, Education conferees, once the conferees are named, to support the House level of funding for Improving Student Learning - Title V which will provide a wide variety of updated school library books and instructional resources. Be sure and thank them for their support. Contact your Members of Congress using ALA's online Legislative Action Center at ****** 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, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.