National-Service Agency Must Have Resources to Manage Growth, Senator Says

Witnesses at a Senate hearing today said legislation before Congress to expand national-service programs is critical because applications from potential volunteers are soaring at a time when they are needed to help Americans weather the economic downturn.

But the senator who chaired the meeting, Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, urged supporters to ensure that enough money is allocated for managerial functions so the Corporation for National and Service, the federal national-service agency, can handle the growth effectively.

“To pass an authorization that does not have the resources behind it makes us feel good,” she said. “We want to do good.” Congress should ensure such money is provided when approving a 2010 budget for the agency, Ms. Mikulski said, adding that there is otherwise a danger of offering “hollow opportunities.”

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee held the hearing on the Serve America Act (S. 277), a bill to triple the number of participants in year-long national-service programs to 250,000 by 2014.

The bill would create a ServeAmerica Corps (in place of the current AmeriCorps) that would be made up of specific “corps” working on issues like clean energy, poverty, education, and health care. It would also create new service programs for young people and older people and create funds to help nonprofit groups expand innovative programs and recruit and manage volunteers.

The bill, introduced by Sens. Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, has broad bipartisan support, and many senators spoke warmly at the hearing about the benefits of national service both for the volunteers and the people they help.

But Ms. Mikulski said the legislation will face some “naysayers” as it moves through Congress.

She recalled that the Corporation for National and Community Service faced a “bureaucratic boondoggle” in 2003, when it did not have the money to handle all of the volunteers it had enrolled. She asked if the agency has the administrative systems to handle the increasing number of applications it is receiving, as well as manage the money it received from the economic-stimulus package just approved by Congress ($201-million, mostly to expand AmeriCorps).

Alan Solomont, chairman of the corporation’s board, said the agency will pursue growth “responsibly and gradually.” He said while some people were hoping for more money from the stimulus package, “we were all restrained by the sense that it didn’t make any sense to get more without the capacity” to manage it. He added that the growth to 250,000 members authorized by the Serve America Act will take place gradually.

Stephen Goldsmith, vice chair of the corporation’s board, added that the legislation includes money to help the agency provide information-technology support to the field and hire an outside management consultant. “We can rethink the way this organization is managed as a result of this bill,” he said.