HOUSE and SENATE

The House Budget Committee passed a budget bill that would raise the fiscal year (FY) 2020 and FY2021 discretionary spending caps by a vote of 19 to 17. The bill would provide a $34 billion increase to non-defense spending in FY2020 and an additional $15 billion increase for FY2021. The bill would also increase defense spending by $17 billion in FY2020 and by an additional $16 billion in FY2021.

The Senate did not pass its version of a bill that would provide $13.6 billion in disaster aid, including $165 million for schools and institutions of higher education (IHEs) affected by recent natural disasters.

The House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) Appropriations Subcommittee will hold a public witness FY2020 hearing on Tuesday, April 9. The deadline to submit written testimony is Monday, April 8.

ADMINISTRATION

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) concluded negotiated rulemaking on a number of higher education issues. In the end, the negotiated rulemaking committee was able to reach consensus on all of the proposed areas of regulation.

ED released data showing that, of the 9,820 borrowers who re-applied for Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) after they were initially denied PSLF because they selected the wrong repayment plan, only 262 were approved, while 8,374 were denied and 1,184 remain pending.

ED released data showing that, in the last half of 2018, ED did not adjudicate any of its roughly 158,000 pending Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDR) claims.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General (IG) Daniel Levinson will resign on May 31. Joanne Chiedi will serve as acting HHS IG starting June 1.

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) published its proposed priorities in Federal Register, which will be open for public comment until May 28.

EVENTS

Penn Hill plans to provide clients with summaries of the following events next week:

• April 10: House Education and Labor Committee hearing on “Examining the Policies and Priorities of the U.S. Department of Education” at 9am
• April 10: Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing on “Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Strengthening Accountability to Protect Students and Taxpayers” at 10am

GRANT OPPORTUNITIES 

Penn Hill Group provides a list of grant opportunities and summaries for select grants. Please visit our website for more information.