ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 11, Number 19 March 18, 2002 In this issue: ESEA-Urgent Action Needed Ask your Senator to sign on to a letter to be sent by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), sponsor of the Literacy Through School Libraries legislation that was passed as part of H.R. 1, the No Child Left Behind, ESEA reauthorization. The letter is asking for increased appropriations for the program for FY2003 beyond the $100 million trigger amount that would turn the program into a grant program going to each state. If your Senator agrees to sign on to the letter, YOUR SENATOR should contact Elyse Wasch, Senator Reed's staff person by Friday, March 22. Currently, the program is funded at $12.5 million. Senator Reed's letter will be sent to Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Harkin and the Ranking Minority Member Senator Arlen Specter. This is the time of year when appropriations subcommittees meet to determine what amounts will be spent for FY2003. Because there are so many competing priorities this year, particularly with the high level requested for spending on Defense, it will be even more important that library supporters contact Congress to support funding for this and other library programs. BACKGROUND: H.R. 1 was signed into law on January 8, 2002 (P.L. 107-110). The bill, titled No Child Left Behind, reauthorized the major K-12 legislation and included the Literacy Through School Libraries, an amendment originally sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed (D- RI) and Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS). The amendment, passed by a vote of 69-30 in the Senate, was included in the Senate version of H.R. 1 and was accepted by conferees as part of the final bill. Subsequently, appropriators met to finalize the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. The amount of $12.5 million for the Literacy Through School Libraries line item was in the Senate bill but not in the House bill. Fortunately, that amount was included in the final appropriations bill. The school library legislation stipulates that unless the funding allocation is over $100 million, the grants will be administered as competitive grants through the Department of Education. Should the funding level be over $100 million, the grants would be administered by each state. Note: The Department of Education web site states that requests for proposals for grants from the Literacy Through School Libraries program will be issued by the Department around May 25. Those would be grants to be awarded with FY 2002 dollars. ****** 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; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell, Claudette Tennant. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.