Posted on 07/31/2003 12:39:10 PM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
Repairing hiking trails in Acadia National Park. Tracking lobsters aboard fishing boats. Publishing an environmental newsletter for 5,000 teachers statewide.
These conservation-related programs and numerous other activities are bracing to do without scores of volunteers funded by the federal AmeriCorps program. Congress has been unable to resolve disputes over whether to funnel $100 million to the financially troubled agency.
Now the uncertainty threatens to undermine the entire program because organizers say they must know by Aug. 1 how many volunteers to recruit and hire for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. Congress almost certainly cannot approve any funding until at least September - and that depends on lawmakers resolving their disputes.
"Everyone is kind of shocked and dismayed that the largest and most successful program in Maine is going to disappear," said Susan Spinell, acting director of the Maine Conservation Corps. "By the time they fiddle-faddle around in Washington, D.C., I don't have any confidence that that will be voted on."
The Senate, which has supported giving the program $100 million, is expected to vote this week on an emergency spending bill that could have included the money. But the House refused to include the funding in its version of the legislation, which lawmakers approved Friday before leaving town for the August recess.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said senators are discussing their options, including adding the money to force the House to return to work. But she said that is unlikely, which raises the prospect that funding couldn't be added until at least September.
"It's a rarity when one house adjourns and the other is left in this legislative limbo because you can't complete action on a significant piece of legislation," Snowe said. "We have our differences and we ought to work out our differences rather than adjourn and leave everyone sort of high and dry."
Spinell's agency got $460,000 this year from the federal government to match with an identical amount of funding from state agencies and nonprofit groups that need volunteers.
Volunteers earn modest stipends. Full-time members who serve 1,700 hours are awarded a $4,725 education grant to be used for college or repay a student loan. About half the members receive an annual living allowance of about $9,300.
But the lack of federal funding threatens to whittle the program from 163 volunteers in Maine this year to only 10 starting in the fall.
The Maine Conservation Corps supports 18 volunteers in educational programs ranging from the school newsletter to lobster tracking and activities about water quality. The agency also has about 60 volunteers in field teams repairing trails at Acadia, fixing retaining walls and building a boardwalk at Jordan Pond.
Spinell's calendar has a training session penciled in for the latest crop of volunteers Sept. 15 to 20. The site is set, the agenda printed. But it can't happen now.
"We can't do anything with money that late," she said. "We're supposed to be recruiting right now."
The entire Maine delegation, including Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Reps. Tom Allen and Mike Michaud, supports additional funding for AmeriCorps. Gov. John Baldacci joined 42 other governors in writing the White House July 21 to urge President Bush to fund the program. Bush cited AmeriCorps in his State of the Union address as a model volunteer program.
The House approved a $983.6 million emergency spending bill July 25 without any money for AmeriCorps. The White House had requested a $1.9 billion emergency bill and the Senate and House each initially approved $2 billion. But the White House has not requested any extra money for AmeriCorps from the House.
Since 1993, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the parent agency of AmeriCorps, funded more than 50,000 positions nationwide each year to support education, public safety, health and the environment. But because of past accounting problems, the corporation can fund only a few thousand positions this fall.
The additional $100 million considered in the Senate could restore about 20,000 positions, including 30 in Maine, for a total of 40.
On Monday, the inspector general for AmeriCorps' parent agency reported that the Corporation for National and Community Service violated federal law by approving 20,000 more volunteers than it had scholarship money to support. The Office of Management and Budget estimated that the enrollment miscalculations resulted in a $64 million shortfall, which Congress covered in a March bill.
The inspector general, J. Russell George, blamed the problem on "inadequate oversight, flawed membership and financial reporting systems, job responsibilities for key personnel that were either not well-defined or adhered to" and ineffective communication among managers.
Chief Executive Officer Leslie Lenkowsky, who announced his resignation this month, disputed the findings, saying they relied on outdated financial data.
The effects of the financial problems and the resulting political dispute are now rippling at the local level with the loss of volunteers.
"It's really too bad," Spinell said. "There's just a huge bang for the buck."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
If that's the example of the best in Maine then Maine sure isn't what it used to be. Guess those paid volunteers will either have to get a real job or become real volunteers.
Volunteers my Clymer!
Better to sort that out first.
Maybe Olympia Snowe can explain how a "volunteer" program ends up costing $100,000,000. I doubt it.
The inspector general, J. Russell George, blamed the problem on "inadequate oversight, flawed membership and financial reporting systems, job responsibilities for key personnel that were either not well-defined or adhered to" and ineffective communication among managers.
Chief Executive Officer Leslie Lenkowsky, who announced his resignation this month, disputed the findings, saying they relied on outdated financial data.
Yeah, sure. Let's give these filthy scumbag Democrats another $100 million. Not.
Thank God for the guts shown in the House.
Hmmmmm...exactly how does one define volunteer?
Don't laugh.
This would be the best news of the day if and when it happens.
To be fair, one speaks of a volunteer military, and they are paid are they not? Not enough, but they are paid. The $9,300 is not much also. The folks are often college graduates or at least Junior or Senior level students taking a year off.
That said, the federal government has no delegated power to be funding the vast majority, if not all, of what Americorps does.
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