To highlight the fruits of your labor throughout the FY20 budget season, read on for more about the Council’s budget decisions impacting our four issue areas: Expanded Learning, Youth Homelessness, Youth Workforce Development, and Opportunity Youth.
Youth Homelessness: $5.447 Million Added to End Youth Homelessness by 2022
The Department of Human Services saw an increase of $5.447 million dollars for FY20 to support the implementation of programs to end youth homelessness by 2022. Advocates supported this funding mark, which will ensure new extended transitional housing, traditional transitional housing, and shelter. Council made significant investments on top of the Mayor’s proposed budget, with the Committee on Human Services adding almost $3 million in funding.
Expanded Learning: Loss of Under $300,000 to OST Office
The Office of Out of School Time Grants and Youth Outcomes (OST Office) which manages the Learn24 network, saw a loss of under $300,000 to FY20 OST grants as compared to the FY19 budget. The Deputy Mayor for Education Budget Oversight answers reports a projected loss of 86 OST slots, and his testimony reflected that this would mean a loss of one or two slots per grantee across the city. We’ll continue to monitor the OST Office’s navigation of this loss of funding and what it will mean for grantees.
A bright spot in the funding of the OST Office is that Council approved the Mayor’s proposed $3.6 million in recurring funds to replace the one-time funding of FY19. This recurring funding will help to stabilize grant-making going forward.
Disconnected Youth and Youth Workforce: More than $2.7 Million restored or added
Adult Transit Subsidy
Once more, robust and collaborative advocacy efforts have paid off! While the Mayor’s original budget held the Adult Transit Subsidy stable, our collective advocacy and outreach resulted in the Council’s action to add $200,000; increasing the monthly transit subsidy for adult learners from $50-$70. This is a modest investment that we know goes far in increasing the rates of adult learner participation and completion of a secondary credential or GED.
Disconnected Youth
With leadership from the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development, Council made the legislative changes necessary to expand MBSYEP from 6 weeks to 12 weeks for participants who are considered “disconnected”, or those young people not in school and not working. While DOES has previously allowed some older participants to remain in the program until the end of September, this change provides program extensions to all disconnected youth. This investment and policy change speaks to the work our community has done over the years to raise awareness about the opportunity to use MBSYEP participation to connect these young people to long term education and workforce development opportunities.
Youth Workforce
After being completely cut in the Mayor’s original budget, Council was able to not only restore, but expand the Career Pathways Innovation Fund; increasing the investment from $1.5 million to $2.15 million in FY20. This program serves over 1,000 youth and young adults each year using promising practices designed to get and keep folks in the workforce and we are thrilled to see the program expand. This was a big lift and could not have been accomplished without the collective effort of partners, participants and providers.
Building off prior efforts to increase MBSYEP wages for older youth, this year Council approved a modest increase of $377,000 to increase the hourly for 14 and 15 year olds to $6.25. While a modest increase, it’s a meaningful one for MBSYEP participants.
Equally important, the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development also reflected their appreciation for how important it is to remove barriers to participation for our most vulnerable young people. Specifically, that having to submit documentation annually is burdensome. The Council is strongly encouraging DOES to utilize the DC Network’s virtual one-stop system to start uploading documentation to this system which could then be checked in future years (vs requiring participants to re-submit). While not necessarily a budget win per-se, this is a great reminder of how the performance oversight and budget process can elevate challenges or opportunities to best serve our young people.
Want to Learn More About Other Issues?
As always, there were a variety of other important investments made this year ranging from partial funding of the “Birth-To-Three for All DC Act of 2018”, modest increases in school based mental health funding and full funding of the School Safety Act. There are also a number of important investments that remain unfunded, or underfunded. From the per-pupil funding rate and other school based supports, to housing and health care. For more information we encourage visiting the DC Fiscal Policy Institute blog which features a more detailed breakdown of what was approved in the first and second budget votes.
Have questions? Don’t hesitate to reach out!