================================================================= ALAWON Volume 6, Number 8 ISSN 1069-7799 February 6, 1997 American Library Association Washington Office Newsline In this issue: (81 lines) PRESIDENT'S FY98 BUDGET RELEASED _________________________________________________________________ PRESIDENT'S FY98 BUDGET RELEASED The President's budget for fiscal year 1998 was released today, February 6. At a briefing this afternoon at the Department of Education, officials provided details on education programs. Secretary of Education Richard Riley applauded President Clinton for making education a priority, both in his State of the Union address on Tuesday and in his FY98 budget. The overall education budget provides line items to support the new Clinton education initiatives announced over the last few months, such as the Hope scholarship tax credits, the school construction initiative, increases in Pell grants, and increases (already begun in FY97) of work-study slots to be devoted to the America Reads initiative. The line item in the budget book for library programs now appears under the Interior section along with the line item for the Institute for Museum and Library Services. For appropriations for the new Library Services and Technology Act, the President's budget lists $136.37 million. The FY97 budget, approved on September 30, 1996, set a total of $147 million for library programs in LSCA and the Higher Education Act. The Administration's budget request for the Institute of Museum and Library Services is $26 million for the Office of Museum Services. The Institute of Museum Services received an increase to $22 million in FY97. In other areas of the education budget, GOALS 2000 would be increased to $620 million, an increase of $129 million from FY97. The President's budget would increase Educational Technology to $500 million to "help meet the President's goal of linking every school to the Information Superhighway by the year 2000." The budget would eliminate Title VI Innovative Education Program Strategies block grants. These grants were the former Chapter 2 block grants and, according to Department of Education sources, 40 percent of the past funding went to school libraries for materials. In this year's budget material however, the narrative claims that the "overall purpose of the program--supporting school reform--was not achieved because of the broad, vague, and overlapping nature of the activities eligible for funding." The narrative further states that "the majority of the activities supported by Chapter 2 received only a small percentage of their funding from the program and thus would be likely to continue in its absence." We will supply further details on other areas of the President's FY98 budget of interest to library supporters in succeeding ALAWONs. _________________________________________________________________ ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc @ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. Visit our Web site at http://www.alawash.org. ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V) 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F) Washington, DC 20004-1701 800.941.8478 (V) Lynne E. Bradley, Editor Deirdre Herman, Managing Editor Contributors: Mary R. Costabile Claudette Tennant All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. =================================================================