Senate and House Divergence in FY2010 Appropriations for Nonprofits

Rick Cohen, the Nonprofit Quarterly’s national correspondent, offers the following Report:

Appropriations start in the House of Representatives, but require action from the Senate as well in order to pass a budget. The Senate’s Committee on Appropriations started to make some budget headway just this past week, passing a number of bills that will require negotiations and blending with their House Appropriations counterparts in conference committee.

Where is the Senate’s attention on issues of concern to the programs and finances of the nonprofit sector (knowing full well that nonprofits should be attentive to and involved in every aspect of federal government budgetary matters, not just those that lead to money filling nonprofit coffers)?

Here is the beginning of a budgetary travelogue of the recommendations from Senate appropriators:
Corporation for National and Community Service: The House appropriators cited problems with the CNCS management to cut $90 million from the White House budget recommendation, zero out the Volunteer Generation Fund, and slice $15 million from the Social Innovation Fund. The Senate doesn’t agree. It actually added $8 million onto the Corporation’s budget, perhaps reflecting that the Serve America Act which will greatly expand community service programs in this agency had its genesis with national profile bipartisan support from sponsors Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), the former seriously ill after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2008. The Senate has the full $50 million in its recommendations for the Social Innovation Fund and $8 million for the Volunteer Generation Fund. At least in the formal committee text of the appropriations report, there is not a mention of managerial issues within the Corporation or reference to any of the findings of the Inspector General.

Read the rest of the detailed Cohen Report here.