ACTION  ALERT
National Conference of State Legislatures
Office of State-Federal Relations
December 5, 2007
Oppose Preemption of State Appropriations Authority!
CONGRESS IS SET TO UNDERMINE STATE HIGHER EDUCATION APPROPRIATIONS AUTHORITY THROUGH A MAINTENANCE OF EFFORT (MOE) PROVISION BURIED IN THE COLLEGE OPPORTUNITY AND AFFORDABILITY ACT OF 2007 (H.R. 4137).
- Section 108 would punish states for not maintaining or increasing higher education funding appropriations.
- Section 108 violates all principles of federalism and would place the federal government in charge of determining when state legislatures and governors have adequately funded higher education.
CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TODAY AND URGE THEM TO:
- Preserve State Sovereignty, and
- Preserve State Authority To Determine State Higher Education Appropriations
- STRIKE Section 108 From H.R. 4137
The National Conference of State Legislatures urges you to contact your congressional delegation and insist that this blatant power grab by the junior fiscal partner in higher education policy be removed from H.R. 4137 before its final passage. If enacted, Section 108 would have negligible impact on its intended target—postsecondary tuitions. However, it would set a dangerous precedent for federal intrusion into state policy and appropriations authority. There are numerous factors that go into making state higher education appropriation decisions, none of which are the responsibility or purview of federal policymakers.
The MOE in Section 108 could actually have the opposite effect of its intended purpose and reduce state appropriations for higher education, while putting the federal government on the shaky path of advancing federal price controls to hold tuition costs in check. Failure to meet the federal government’s “funding standard” would prove costly—to schools and school children who would lose unidentified federal resources based on some bureaucratic determination made in Washington, D.C. But perhaps the greatest irony is that the MOE set out in Section 108 and existing federal MOEs do not compel Congress itself to fund the grossly underfunded federal mandates in IDEA (between $12 billion and $30 billion per year) or No Child Left Behind (also in the tens of billions of dollars each year).
Postsecondary tuition rates are determined through a complex interplay of individual state and regional economic factors. By ignoring this complexity and assuming uniformity, Section 108 would establish a perverse and unnecessary component to the policymaking process. Section 108 should be struck and we seek your support in eliminating this section from H.R. 4137 before consideration on the House floor the week of December 10.
For additional assistance and information, please contact David Shreve (202-624-8187; david.shreve@ncsl.org) or Robert Strange (202-624-8698; robert.strange@ncsl.org) in NCSL’s Washington, D.C. office.
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