House Panel Proposes Cutting President’s Budget for National Service and Social Innovation

A House subcommittee today proposed cutting President Obama’s 2010 budget for the Corporation for National and Community Service by $90-million — including trimming the new Social Innovation Fund from $50-million to $35-million.

The House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee proposed increasing the agency’s budget from almost $890-million in fiscal year 2009 to $1.06-billion in fiscal year 2010.

But President Obama had proposed $1.15-billion, partly to expand the AmeriCorps program and create the Social Innovation Fund, which will award grants to help nonprofit groups expand innovative social projects, or start promising new ones. Both were authorized by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act that was signed into law last April.

“The subcommittee will consider further expansion of service and volunteer programs once the Corporation for National and Community Service has demonstrated that is has made improvement in its internal operations,” Rep. David R. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who chairs the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement.

President Obama’s budget did not cover everything included in the Serve America Act, which created an array of new volunteer programs, due to budget constraints. (See The Chronicle’s interview with Nicola Goren, acting chief executive of the corporation, on that topic.)

But the president did include the $50-million the bill authorized for the Social Innovation Fund — and he touted the new fund at an event at the White House last week.

The spending bill now goes to the full House Appropriations Committee. The Senate will adopt its own version.

Voices for National Service, a coalition of national service programs and state service commissions, asked supporters to urge Congress to fully finance the president’s request, saying service programs can help people hit by the economic crisis.

It said in an e-mail message that the Corporation for National and Community Service had focused on improving its management practices over the past six years and that the Serve America Act would introduce new internal controls and policies to strengthen its accountability.