The National Coalition for Literacy (NCL) recently sent a sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to approve an FY 2015 omnibus appropriations bill before the end of the calendar year, including an increase in funding for adult education to at least the $609 million level proposed in the Labor-HHS-Education bill released by Representative Rosa DeLauro in September. (Full disclosure: I am the current President of NCL.)

While working with NCL members to put together our recommendation, I needed to pull together all the recent proposals for federal adult education funding for FY 2015, including the President’s original budget request, the Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Reported Bill, the House Democrats’ Labor-HHS-Education bill, as well as the figures authorized by the new WIOA legislation. Rather than just file that away, I thought I would share it here, in case it might be useful to others.

Note that the House Democrats’ proposal is probably the high-water mark for potential adult education funding in FY 2015. It’s also worth noting that there is increasing concern that an omnibus bill will be blocked by Tea Party Republicans upset with President Obama’s imminent executive action on immigration. It’s really unclear to me what is going to happen with the FY 2015 federal budget. If I had to guess, I’d put my money on a short-term Continuing Resolution (CR) that punts the decision into January and the newly elected Congress.

• [1] http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget12/12action.pdf
• [2] http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget13/13action.pdf
• [3] http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget14/14action.pdf
• [4] http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget15/summary/15summary.pdf
• [5] http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/sites/default/files/LHHS%20Report%20w%20Chart%2007REPT.PDF
• [6] https://www.congress.gov/113/bills/hr803/BILLS-113hr803enr.pdf
• [7] http://delauro.house.gov/images/pdf/FY15%20Labor-H%20Appropriations%20Bill.pdf