When Is the New Year Again?

This week's guest column by Daniela Grigioni examines how uncertainty at the federal level, from the congressional budget to the presidential transition, impacts local service delivery. A shorter version of this op-ed runs this week in the Current.

Across the diverse community that is Washington, DC, we’re lucky to have multiple opportunities to mark the New Year. There’s New Year’s Day on January 1, but there’s also the Chinese New Year coming up at the end of January. In September, we’ll mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and the Islamic or Hijri New Year.

Congress enjoys the liberty to set its own calendar. And while the examples above are fixed annual traditions, when it comes to the federal budget and the beginning of the 2017 fiscal year, we’ll soon be marking our third "New Year’s Day" of the year. The first was on October 1, 2016, the official start of the 2017 fiscal year. Unfortunately, Congress elected not to pass a full FY17 budget, adopting instead a short-term spending bill that funded the government for nine weeks, thus avoiding a budget fight in the midst of the presidential campaign. When that funding expired on December 9, our second "New Year’s Day" for the 2017 fiscal year, Congress opted for another short-term measure to carry the government through most of April, leaving funding for the end of the 2017 fiscal year – May through September – unresolved.

Federal Policies, Local Impacts

Federal grants play a huge role in my work — providing afterschool programs for children. The federal 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21st CCLC) initiative provides funds to DC and to the states, which in turn award grants to community-center or school-based afterschool programs. The After-School All-Stars DC program at Charles Hart Middle School is lucky enough to receive a 21st CCLC grant that makes all the difference to the participating children, and to their families. 

Coming from some of the most impoverished areas in DC, students at Hart are able to enjoy art exploration, dance, athletics, mentoring, a phenomenal class in Healthy Eating run by a professional chef, a farm-to-table garden project, singing and performing, spoken word and poetry, in addition to a partnership with TechBridge, an organization that exposes young girls to the sciences. As part of the afterschool programming, children learn about many careers they might not otherwise, as well as college campuses and college life, and they join in service projects, and meet volunteers and mentors who help them develop leadership skills and the competencies necessary to be competitive on the college and job market.

But running a good program depends not just on having the funding, but also on being able to plan for what funding you’ll have. The federal delay in adopting a full-year budget means DC and the states won’t know how much money they’ll have for 21st CCLC grants until April, seven months into the fiscal year. They may guard against the prospect that Congress might decide to cut funding for afterschool programs, in some cases by holding off on making any grants at all until they know exactly what kind of resources they’ll have. Indeed, if funding were cut, this source of safe, healthy and enriching activities might just disappear. Many children would return to an empty home or remain in the streets and, for many who receive meals through their afterschool program, dinner would be uncertain.

Cost of Uncertainty

Who knows what to expect in the new budget? Every transition brings uncertainty and this one is no exception. The President-elect will have new initiatives, and presumably some cuts to propose, and Congress should and will have its say. We can certainly hope that something as important and worthy as support for afterschool programs never ends up on the chopping block. 

Still, having multiple fiscal New Year’s Days comes at a cost, and the uncertainty it creates for afterschool — and for other essential funding streams – is one of them.  Our students, our families, our workforce, and our country itself suffer with this kind of uncertainty.  In the context of these challenges, it is extremely important that we afterschool providers remind ourselves and others of the value of out-of-school-time programs.  In many communities, we are an anchor for young people and their families; we guarantee a constant and safe presence of service and care; we keep on leveling the playing field for disadvantaged youth.

At After-School All-Stars we’ve tried to diversify our connections.  We work hard on creating volunteer opportunities so that professionals from different walks of life can meet our students and understand how positively afterschool programs impact their lives.  As service providers, we need to continue to expose our work to policy makers, the private sector, the business community and the philanthropic community.

At a time when there aren’t nearly enough afterschool programs to meet the need, our federal budget process should provide certainty and support – not present additional challenges.

Daniela Grigioni is the Executive Director of After-School All-Stars DC. She is a 2016-17 Afterschool Ambassador for the Afterschool Alliance.

DCAYA’s Budget Updates Part II: Expanded Learning & Youth Homelessness

The final vote by the Council occurred yesterday, and the District’s FY17 budget now goes to Mayor Bowser. Today we continue to reflect on the work of our members and partners throughout this year’s advocacy season, and provide an update on successes for youth, families and children within the FY17 budget. Last week’s blog focused on Youth Workforce Development and Disconnected Youth, and we continue this week with a look at Expanded Learning and Youth Homelessness.

Expanded Learning

A Path Forward for Funding Afterschool and Summer Learning

After the mayor proposed $4.9 million to the DC Trust for community-based afterschool and summer programming in FY17, our initial ask was to double that investment in order to serve up to four times as many children and youth in need of quality expanded learning opportunities. While we were optimistic about the strength of the proposed amount compared to recent years, it was not enough to reverse a downward trend for out-of-school time programming we have seen each year in the District since 2010.

While we will continue to advocate for scaled-up, multi-year funding beginning in FY18, the advocacy priority for FY17 quickly shifted with the announced dissolution of the DC Trust on April 26. Since then, DCAYA and our community-based partners have worked hard to preserve the $4.9 million intended for expanded learning programs. Our coalition has held more than a dozen meetings with members of DC Council and their staff, as well as the Deputy Mayors for Education and Health and Human Services, to build support among policy makers for an established, nonprofit intermediary with youth development expertise to administer out-of-school time (OST) funding in FY17. We continue to be an active partner in this effort, as Deputy Mayor Brenda Donald presents this recommendation to Mayor Bowser.

We’d like to thank the Deputy Mayors and members of Council, as well as all of our expanded learning partners (simply too many to list here) who stepped up to provide resources and insight in the wake of the Trust’s collapse. Most especially, we’re grateful to those members who met with policy makers and offered public testimony to advocate for the preservation of out-of-school time funding. We'd like to give a special shout out of thanks to Fair Chance and Gretchen Van der Veer for helping coordinate our members and Fair Chance partners to do a final round of walk arounds with DC Council on the importance of out of school time programming.

Sustaining 21st Century Community Learning Centers

Earlier this year, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) announced that due to internal efforts to streamline grant making processes and decreased federal funds, there would be no new competition for the federal 21st Century Community Learning Center (CLC) grant program in the 2016-2017 school year. This action immediately affected three community-based OST providers who all stood to lose approximately $995,413 in the coming school year. The disruption of these services, which have all demonstrated quality programming and remarkable outcomes for students, would have caused significant ramifications next year for up to 1,000 at-risk students and undermined years of investments.

Recognizing that families, youth and children deserve more than a haphazard and inconsistent delivery of these key critical services, DCAYA and these three partners launched a targeted advocacy effort to find support and funding. These efforts paid off with Council identifying $800,000 to sustain 21st Century CLC’s in FY17. We’d like to thank these organizations and their families for rallying to support the students, as well as Superintendent Hanseul Kang and everyone at OSSE for their support in working toward a solution, and Councilmembers David Grosso, Brianne Nadeau and Charles Allen for their outspoken support for sustaining this important and life-changing funding stream.

Youth Homelessness

Building Capacity for a Youth-Friendly System

This year, DCAYA advocated to an additional investment of $800,000 to create more transitional housing and independent living options for youth experiencing homelessness. While the mayor’s proposed budget included significantly more funding for crisis support and prevention and diversion services, which we had advocated for and certainly applaud, more funding for meaningful housing interventions will be needed in future years if we are to meet the intent of the 2014 End Youth Homelessness Amendment Act and make homelessness among unaccompanied minors and transition-aged youth rare, brief and non-recurring by 2020.

DCAYA continues to work in a leadership role with the Interagency Council of Homelessness (ICH) and the ICH Youth Subcommittee, and we are optimistic that with the Fall release of the ICH’s Strategic Plan to End Youth Homelessness, we and our partners will be positioned to make an even stronger ask next budget season. We’d like to thank ICH Executive Director Kristy Greenwalt, DHS Director Laura Zeilinger, and DHS Deputy Administrator for Youth Services Hilary Cairns for their continued leadership and support for scaled-up funding, as well as Kimberly Henderson with Child and Family Services Agency, for her role co-chairing the Youth Subcommittee. We are grateful to our members and partners from Sasha Bruce, Casa Ruby, the Latin American Youth Center, Wanda Alston, Covenant House and the DC Center for the LGBT Community for their leadership, advocacy partnerships and public testimonies.

Dignified Housing for Homeless Children & Families

In February, the mayor made good on her promise to voters to deliver a plan to close D.C. General and move homeless families into safe and dignified housing throughout the District, and the plan was met both with intense support and praise, and resistance and criticism. The months that followed saw some of this teased out as policy makers, advocates, and members of the community worked toward a middle ground.  We are pleased that Council has since passed a revised plan that calls for the use of government-owned properties in Wards 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and the purchase (instead of leasing) of the sites in Wards 1 and 4. These revisions effectively respond to resident concerns about cost while maintaining the overall intent of the plan. We believe that the housing these families will receive, along with improved access to local amenities and on-site case management services, will have life-changing results for their children well worth this effort and its capital expenditures.

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Budget Cuts to DC Afterschool Programs

It’s that time of year again: The DCAYA team brings you our analysis of the newly released DC budget.

This year, we’re going to split our analysis into two sections. Part 1, today’s blog, will focus on cuts in the DCPS afterschool budget. Next week, Part 2 ,will focus on our concerns related to older youth services and system level investments.

**To preface, this analysis is in its working stages. We are actively tracking down greater details about the budget. Nonetheless, we have identified some clear areas of concern that we did not want to delay in getting out to parents, service providers, and other community partners. I strongly encourage you to continue to visit our blog, Twitter, Facebook and website for updates as the budget analysis process continues.

Concern regarding Afterschool Funding:

Overview:

Just last year, DC ranked #2 in the country for having the best afterschool programs. Over 7,200 students were enrolled in afterschool programs and  DCPS stated its commitment to universal access to afterschool programming. Why? Afterschool programs, or expanded learning opportunities, have been shown to improve academic, social/emotional , health and safety aspects of students’ lives. Working parents, particularly for those with younger children and limited income, need afterschool programs for economic stability and the safety of their children.

Yet, after examining the budget documents for the upcoming year, which were released April 2, we know with certainty that broad, deep funding cuts will result in thousands of students not being able to attend afterschool programs next year, unless Council makes immediate changes to the budget.