Statement of AFSA President Ernest Logan on President Trump’s 2020 Education Budget  The President may have been a month late with his FY20 budget owing to the 35-day federal government shutdown, but his proposed slashing of the education budget could have been predicted a year ago, maybe two years ago. That’s because it looks a lot like his FY18 and FY19 […]

On Monday, February 2, President Obama released his budget for Fiscal Year 2016. AFSA President Diann Woodard released the following statement in response: “AFSA applauds the President for offering in his FY16 budget request long overdue investments in k-12 education and proposing to end the ill-conceived and self-defeating  sequestration budget cuts. Sequestration decimates funding for the core services we all […]

Last week, Senate appropriators began and then halted their consideration of the Fiscal Year (FY)15 Labor-HHS-Education bill, the measure which funds programs in the Department of Education, as well as the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.   Though the details are still preliminary, at this point it appears that the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee cut the School Leadership Program by […]

On Tuesday, May 13, 2014, AFSA attended The Committee for Education Funding (CEF) FY 2015 Budget Response Briefing held at the Capitol Visitor Center. The briefing was attended by Hill staff, CEF members, and other education stakeholders. AFSA is a member of CEF, a coalition of 114 national education associations and institutions from birth to postgraduate education. The CEF Budget […]

WASHINGTON –A 3-year pay freeze, unpaid furloughs, sequestration and congressionally ordered arbitrary increases in federal workers’ pension payments – with no increased payouts planned in the future – hit federal workers’ morale, top union leaders say. And that’s a problem not just for the workers and their unions, but for the country, since workers with low morale are more likely […]

WASHINGTON –Brushing aside dissent and objections from unions, workers and the Democratic minority, the House’s ruling Republicans jammed through a GOP-written budget blueprint for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, by a 219-205 vote on April 10.  Democrats opposed it 193-0.  Solons then scattered for a 2-week recess. The blueprint sets priorities for legislators as they start writing actual money […]

WASHINGTON –Democratic President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for the year starting Oct. 1 would increase spending for improving infrastructure and raise the federal minimum wage, among other initiatives. His proposals drew accolades from union leaders, who, however, said there were still some key omissions.  The House’s ruling Republicans panned Obama’s blueprint. Typical were comments from AFGE President J. David Cox, […]

WASHINGTON—Government workers’ union leaders and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka slammed the federal budget deal top lawmakers reached on Dec. 10, saying it unfairly hits the nation’s 2 million federal workers – who have borne the brunt of prior budget cuts. And Trumka hit Congress for refusing to ask those who have gained the most from the slow economic recovery – […]

Today’s compromise between Senate Budget Chairman Patty Murray and House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan provides much needed relief from the harmful policy of sequestration. While not without its flaws, the compromise restores almost two-thirds of the cuts to education and other nondefense discretionary (NDD) programs in 2014, although with less relief to come in 2015. Most notably for schools, it […]

On Oct. 16, 2013, President Obama signed legislation approved by Congress to end a 16-day government shutdown. The deal funded the government through Jan. 15, 2014, and raised the $16.7 trillion debt ceiling until Feb. 7,2014, thus avoiding a potentially disastrous default in late October 2013. The end of the shutdown sent hundreds of thousands of furloughed federal workers back […]