Thursday, April 16, 2009

ACTION ALERT: Advocacy Needed on CNAP Amendment Friday Morning!

As mentioned below, the Citizenship for New Americans Program (CNAP) received $500,000 in the House Ways & Means budget. We feel very fortunate to have received the funding, considering the elimination or severe cuts taken by other programs and services.

Still, the cut is $150,000 from FY09 and $110,000 after 9-C cuts and will impact programs and immigrants trying to naturalize, not to mention we do not know what the Senate will do yet with their budget. As a result, Representative Cabral of New Bedford will be filing an amendment to increase CNAP funding to the Governor's recommendation of $580,000. Amendments and co-sponsors are due by 5pm tomorrow! We need to call Reps Friday morning!

Here is what we need to do:
  • Contact your Representatives and ask them to contact Rep. Cabral's office to co-sponsor the amendment to raise citizenship funding to the Governor's budget level of $580,000
  • Follow-up to make sure they have signed on early in the day
  • I will be at the State House for much of the day; e-mail to let me know who you have contacted so that we can make sure to follow up in person
What to say:
  • We recognize the difficult nature of the budget, but the current level of funding represents a cut of nearly 25%, which will impact programs and their ability to serve clients
  • Give examples of services that could be cut
  • Our program relies on this funding to serve the needs of our district
  • There are already people waiting for services, this will only increase the waitlist dramatically
  • We don't know how much funding the Senate will include in their budget, so we need to be aggressive in the House
FYI...Budget Timeline
  • Wednesday, April 15th: House releases FY10 budget proposal
  • Friday, April 17th: Budget amendments that include co-sponsors due at 5pm
  • Monday, April 20th-Friday April 24th: House Ways & Means staff consolidate amendments by topic
  • Monday, April 27th: House budget debates begin
  • Late April-early May:Contact your Senators!
  • Mid-May: Senate releases FY10 budget proposal
If you have any questions, please let me know.

Thank you so much for all your work!

No comments:

Post a Comment

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) and do not represent the views of MIRA's member organizations.