Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

Head Start Appropriations

Increase funding for Head Start and Early Head Start

NHSA Position: As Congress has yet to keep its promises established in the 1990 Reauthorization and two reauthorizations have happened without the full funding of Head Start, the National Head Start Association continues to advocate for yearly increases in discretionary funding for Head Start until such time as the needs of every eligible child and family are met through quality, comprehensive services.

Rationale/Background: The 1990 reauthorization established a goal of serving all eligible children by 1994. In the 1994 and 1998 reauthorizations respectively, full funding language was replaced by language that authorizes "sums as may be necessary," eroding the original goal to serve all eligible children. Because of this, NHSA has advocated with other interested organizations, that Head Start receive as much funding as possible each year in order to better serve children and families, increase enrollment, and sustain and promote quality service delivery. Head Start in FY98 served an estimated 830,000 children, or 42 percent of the eligible 3-to-5-year-old population. The president’s FY2000 request for Head Start is a historic increase in funding of $607 million which if enacted would bring Head Start’s total funding to $5.267 billion. If enacted, this increase would be the largest in history, and would enable Head Start to serve an additional 42,000 children and bring the total national enrollment to 877,000 children.

However, NHSA requested and is seeking an increase in funding for FY2000 of $836 million above FY99 funding bringing the total funding to approximately $5.5 billion. This is being done in order to both sustain program growth which is embraced by the administration (one million children by 2002), as well as introduce quality improvements required by the 1998 Head Start reauthorization, public law 105-285

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http://www.nhsa.org/govaff/2000-Appropriations.htm