programs of a c f provide safety net services to the most vulnerable in our country we have heard compelling testimony over the last several weeks about the challenges that this nation faces over the next ten years challenges that include a rapidly aging baby boomers like me we know by the year twenty twenty seven percent of the population will be old like me helping our very young prepare for school we know that education achievement gaps can be improved with broad based access to early childhood education starting in a very young age and going to kill the guard alleviating poverty we know that thirty seven million top point six percent of the population are living in poverty and that one point three million more children are living in poverty in our country today than in two thousand and eleven percent increase we'll look forward to discussing the budget of the agency that provides a safety net services that make a difference in whether or not a family can have a quality caregiver to keep their kids while they work during the day whether or not a senior citizen can pay the heating bill without missing a meal or their medicine and whether or not a schneider principal deputy assistant secretary for children and families this school year two thousand and eight budget request for the administration for children families is twenty five point eight billion dollars which is about a billion dollars below fiscal year two thousand and seven level i'm sure the chairman and i will share concerns about the pro programatic impact of this proposed funding reduction a particular interest to me is the low income housing energy assistance  the statement after which members of the subcommittee will be recognized for five minutes each to engage you in discussions on various aspects of your budget welcoming me thank you members of the subcommittee i'm pleased to pair before you to present the president's budget for the administration for children and families his request is forty five point three billion dollars in sustains critical funding initiatives while addressing the need for spending discipline richard turman deputy assistant secretary for budget at the department is here with me i would like to present the highlights of this budget and answer any questions you may have welfare reform has been a tremendous success in moving families toward self sufficiency reauthorization of the temporary assistance to needy families program has refocused states on helping families find work our budget maintains a historically high level of funding for both  child care the childcare development block grant and the childcare entitlement the budget also supports high level of success the high level of success achieved by the child support enforcement program and includes legislative proposals that will increase collections to families one point four billion dollars over the next five years help those newly arrived in this country our budget also requests six hundred fifty six million dollars for programs serving refugees astley's cuban haitian entrance victims of torture and trafficking unaccompanied alien children this will provide the funding necessary to continue assisting refugees as well as to fund a new program to help to mastic victims of trafficking a budget also supports a broad range of programs to promote the and social development and health and safety of children for example our budget requests six point eight billion dollars to fund head start support and comprehensive high quality services for approximately nine hundred nineteen thousand children in this nation in addition the budget requests funding for abstinence education run one homo see it services and the mentoring children prisoners program to support efforts of states in establishing and maintaining effective systems of child protection we are requesting one hundred six million dollars for a c s child abuse programs including an increase of ten million dollars for a new comprehensive grant to support proven effective nurse home visitation programs research shows these programs re the incidence of child abuse neglect and improve other outcomes for mothers and their children the budget also seeks ten million dollars to fund a recently authorized incentive program to route to reward states for timely interstate home studies for foster care and adoption assistance budget also maintains funding for other child welfare programs a sea of achieves its goal of increasing the health and prosperity of communities and tribes by strengthening local community partnerships improving civic participation and working with native american communities to build capacity and infrastructure our budget maintains funding at one hundred seventy one million dollars for the various components of the programs that allow itself to support families with members with developmental disabilities and forty four million dollars from it for native american programs in order to meet the demands for home energy assistance for vulnerable populations we are proposing a one point eight billion dollars funding for the low income home energy assistance program and seek to redirect a portion of the funding from the block grant program to the contingency fund where funding can be targeted more effectively to unanticipated emergency weather conditions we also men remain dedicated to increasing the effect giving us a faith based and community organizations in delivering social services to those most in need to this and a budget request seventy five million dollars for the compassion capital fund including thirty five million dollars to be dedicated to the communities empowering youth program help combat gang activities and youth violence a c s implementation of performance management has created a consistent framework for linking agency wide goals with program priorities and targeting resources to meet the needs of children and families for example our budget does not seek funding for the community services block grant because the program lacks measures to demonstrate results does not hold grantees accountable for results and does not award grants a competitive basis similarly the budget fix a five hundred million dollars reduction in funding for this social service block grant given a lack of performance measures to ensure that funding funded activities are in fact effective finally our budget request one hundred ninety nine million dollars for federal administration ten million above last year's funding level to fund inflationary increases in rent mandatory pay increases and to support expanded improper payments efforts for tanis child care and foster care programs i'm pleased to have this opportunity to provide you with the highlights of our budget we look forward to working with the congress on achieving our mission and objectives and i welcome your questions lack health insurance many of them are poor working poor nearly six million children remain uninsured today the minimum wage which would help working families escape from poverty has been increas years the latest census data show that there is seven million people or twelve point six percent of the population are living in poverty more children are living in poverty in our country today that in two thousand one point three million more and eleven percent increase thus the need to help these families has not gone away yet your agency presents the starkest picture of the misguided choices that this president is making the president's tax cuts are made permanent households in the top one percent of the population which is currently those with incomes over four hundred thousand dollars a year will receive tax cuts averaging sixty seven thousand dollars a year by two thousand and twelve in today's dollars that amount is larger than the entire income of a typical family american household little on a family even on poverty income of twenty thousand six hundred fifty dollars for a family of four the president is willing to make budget busting investments in the wealthiest americans at the same time he is not willing to make commensurate investments in programs designed to make life a bit better for most for the most of our most vulnerable families and children once again the community service block grant is eliminated and the president's budget says g help strengthen and provide supportive services to more than six million low income families each year of these two point nine million have family incomes at or below the federal poverty level including a million who are severely poor fifty percent below the poverty line before she'll services block grant is cut by five hundred million dollars or twenty nine percent and f y two zero eight twenty eight in real terms this is a reduction of six hundred thirty two million or thirty five percent of the social services help more than fourteen million fourteen million people each year over half of whom are children over five years the administration's budget cuts the social services blood grant by two point five billion in nominal dollars headstart is cut six hundred eighteen million or a point five percent below the twenty five level in real terms which would reduce comprehensive child development services for over thirty thousand economically disadvantaged children discretionary funding for child care services is frozen for the sixth year in a row in real terms that's one hundred ninety three million or eight point seven percent cut data from the president's own budget and from h h s show that the number of low income children receiving child care assistance has fallen from two point the question is as a result of assistance under the community service block grant can you tell me how many unemployed low income people of being job a job receive training programs to get their diplomas were able to keep a job because of child care or transportation assistance where are people going to turn for the services that the president's proposed tax and how many low income families received child care assistance on the social services block grant how many children receive protective services or are families enjoying going to turn for the services that the president has proposed and how many service seniors are served under these programs have you made commensurate investments president's budget does reflect the priorities to fund programs that have demonstrated results those programs that have demonstrated results either as continued funding  levels and in some cases increased funding you name them often yes or when he presented his hat budget for head start for example it was maintaining that started the historically high level since he submitted his budget congress joint resolution that increased funding by another one hundred million dollars but at the time that he said it is a good start puzzle it was at the record high level the previous year in addition for that budget fred start  he requested sixty nine million dollars be freed up from two technical assistance requirements so that those fund those funds could be used for expanding enrollment so his proposal actually would expand enrollment beyond what congress has provided in the joint resolution you know seven so are you saying that they showed good performance has the cease ones been cut over the past five years headstart terms you know you realize that when we push ahead on one year's budget to the next year that is inflation adjusted numbers  thousand and one in two thousand from two thousand and one current i would have to consult my book to see what the actual increase has been but perhaps you know rather than taking a lot of time you c back that up with numbers from the year two thousand and one or two thousand and two to the current time a big to differ with you on that congressman we recognize that budgets are tight we have se president's proposal for head start would actually expand enrollment to be able to serve more children we hope that this committee and the authorizing committee would allow the flexibility necessary for us to redirect up to sixty nine million dollars in technical assistance to expand enrollment to a record high level of understanding mr schneider and being the temporary chair and get to see one more thing or it is tight i agree with you but i ask you the question why i mentioned some bust the budget busting tax cuts in the past that's physio's today so i think that when we say it's tight we need to remember where it came from who was responsible for it was the last thing mr chairman i'd like to address that issue before i do referencing those those tax cuts that the chairman mentioned those tax cuts benefited all tax income tax paying americans every one of them in fact there were a tremendous reductions in the amount of taxes that all americans paid we have a progressive income tax system so the more you make the more you pay in taxes so if you get a reduction you're paying at a very high level of taxes you're going to get a larger reduction that top five percent of the american taxpaying public pays about a third of the total tax dollar i don't have the exact numbers but it's pretty substantial those tax cuts also produced for people americans earning less than twenty five thousand hours no income tax so when we're talking about about those tax cuts  they were they were i thought they were fairly balanced and lastly those tax cuts have generated hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars of revenues that were not anticipated when the tax cuts were passed but that that's that's in back by the way that's the same strategy that countries like ireland have used to lift their economies up by their bootstraps by cutting corporate taxes and income taxes substantially they become one of the leading economies in europe so there are lessons there and there and tax cuts aren't all bad having said that some of those revenues that we've generated i'd like to spend a few of those on like he yesterday there was an article in usa today that said many states are running out of like the funds as a result some of the states may be forced to divert funds from their summer cooling program so while they may have enough funds for the a surplus there's there's something if there's a bit of a controversy here if you could explain is the usa today article accurate are states running out of funds or is the secretary correct when he says one point four billion dollars in light he funds remain to be spent and you might also respond is it simply a lag in the states receiving those bills and paying those bills and those funds are in actuality are states running out of money or the well the good news and i'm i haven't read the usa today article on monday forget about the article are states running out of money on monday we released in the dish and one hundred fifty seven million dollars from the like the block gra program through manner of the block grant funds i'm not sure if the article took was the writer was cognizant of that or not all right so there is a twenty million dollar twenty million dollars of zero five contingency funds available and then i believe the states have carried forward eighty six million dollars in of six funds into seven so those funds that are currently surplus from prior years are available to those states they are sir excuse me yeah make sure they are available they have not been allocated have not been released but they are available so that if states ask to draw on those funds they could be made available to them yes  referencing secretary leavitt statement that there's one point four billion that remains to be spent by states there's about two hundred million that has not yet been distributed by h h s that correct all right well this this discussion will continue i think there's a letter i'm told circulating the house right now this requires requesting five billion dollars in light funds for this year so i suspect this concerned about the ly he program with my first question the number of households receiving energy assistance is reaching record levels in two thousand and two households receiving assistance was four point two million in two thousand and six households receiving assistance was five point one million in two thousand and seven it's up to five point six million clearly millions of households can no longer afford the price of home energy yet the administration is proposing to cut like he funding relative to fiscal year zero seven but drastically cut it relative to zero six and three point from three point two billion to one point seven one point seven eight two billion this is even more shocking since the administration's own energy information administration when her home energy price watch march sixth forecasts just raised at the estimated cost of home heating from eight hundred seventy three dollars to eight hundred ninety eight dollars for the current year this is two hundred dollars more than the average cost of home heating from two thousand and five to two thousand from two thousand to two thousand and five and i believe that's what the chairman was getting at when he asked about some of those substantive changes my state is the third largest recipient of law he funds and illinois my district receives the largest like people ward about twelve million dollars the next largest law he granted my status for four million dollars obviously law heap is very important to me and to my constituents and this for me at least begs a simple question why aren't you asking for an increase in line funds for  shift funds into the contingency fund which would allow us more flexibility to address specific needs the increase in the number of american households that obviously need winter home assistance in terms of low income heating and energy assistance we see an increase in the number of households we see it increase in the cost that those households are requesting and yet you're saying that the president is requesting a lesser amount than the statistics are showing the direction of what the average american family is requesting from the program and help me understand once again why the fiscal year two thousand and eight budget request is beneath the all six inactive level the all seven inactive level when the statistics are heading in the opposite direction zero six i believe that there was two point two billion dollars initially appropriated for life in addition to the emergency supplemental added a billion dollars more assuming there is no emergency supplemental the statistics are showing that if we in an emergency supplemental had to increase the law he program in an emergency supplemental which raises the question are you counting on an emergency supplemental later down the road to increase the  program and why isn't what the statistics are activists actually suggesting is necessary for the law he program in your budget request as opposed to waiting for some supplemental to reflect to reflect the need based upon historic trends in the program congressman what we've observed in the last few years has is that states have been more active in working with the light he programs creating their own life like he type funding streams in dition our request to shift funds from the block grant to the contingency fund will give us more flexibility to address emergencies as they arise but that's particularly important for mr walsh is question and i move to my final question  chairman and that is why the usa today article is particularly important because if states are saying that they're cutting grants and they're running low on funds then to suggest before the committee that the state somehow have these funds is not completely consistent information with what the newspaper article said so my last question and i do have another question but i'll save into the next round when can we expect the president to release to emergency contingency funds for the states that need them we are monitoring weather conditions and fuel prices very carefully we just released one hundred fifty seven million dollars this week which i'm sure the states the states actually had it we released it on saturday the states actually had access to it starting monday so i'm sure that that will provide relief to states that are seeking that relief we are currently looking at the two fund two hundred in one or two million dollars as i recall it's two hundred and a bit more  in two thousand and one this study showed that only one hundred percent of eligible children of migrant and seasonal workers were served through existing migrant and seasonal head start programs by comparison regional head start programs serve approximately fifty to sixty percent of their eligible population a despite this disparity funding premise h s as a percentage of the overall head start appropriations has not increased from four percent since two thousand and one less to report language was included in both the house and in the senate appropriations bill directing h h s to develop a detailed plan to serve more eligible families  understand that part of your response to that request was that you expanded funding to secure over thirty five hundred additional migrant children and their families and i'd like to try and put that that response into perspective can you first of all tell us what percent of percentage of families and children are actually eligible for these services and  have your efforts that i just described taking you above the nineteen percent of children that are being served and have  you also increased that additional money that you put in for that has that taken you over the four percent that is been appropriated for for this particular program and finally have you developed a plan as requested and when will that plan be available head start program that we are currently serving no do you have do you know how many are over we know that based on the study that you're only serving nineteen percent so with your increased thirty five hundred additional migrant children has that taken you how far above that nineteen percent has that taken you based on the overall eligible children and have you increased the number of or rather the monies to serve these children above the four per percent that has not been changed since two thousand and one i'm going to respond to you but it's probably not going to be satisfactory so we will follow it up with a written response for you my understanding is that most migrant and seasonal have struck children don't enter efforts are you anticipating then that you will be serving more than one hundred percent of the elephant children do you have a goal that you intend to reach this year the good news here is that we work very aggressively with our gran s to figure out how to maximize the enrollment of migrant seasonal workers i think our currencies are actually having some trouble figuring out exactly how they could accommodate thirty five million dollars because it's a very sickening can increase in spending for migrant seasonal workers so you have a plan but have had do you have the plan now that was requested of you i don't know if there written detail plan that would share with you what we whatever we have we will share with you i know that we've been providing technical assistance to our grantees working very closely with them during the grant announcement period actually we had two different efforts because the first offer grantees were not able to fully satisfy or fully absorb the thirty five million dollars we worked very aggressively aggressively with them so that they could come up with ways to draw down to the thirty five million dollars limit so with regards to the request that was made by this committee last year to develop a detailed plan to serve more  families that has not been done then it may have been done i don't know we will look into this for you and share with you what plans we have ok and you are right the answers were not satisfactory so we'll follow up  resulting in the misclassification of children as adults and as a result children are mistakenly housed in adult detention where they are vulnerable to abuse and neglect by adults that have that we've we've had a lot of reports about that does or are have any policies or procedures in place to identify and to i guess basically rescue these unaccompanied alien children that have been messed misclassified by d h s and if not what plans or protocol should you be developing we are working with the h s on this very issue no plans or protocols chest to determine whether we can create such protocols this is of the a real concern to us children should not be in adult detention facilities we have excellent  incumbent upon us to make sure that these children are well taken care of treated humanely and with respect ok i wholeheartedly agree that a most know my time is that mr chairman but this is a problem that has been going on for years this is something that is not new so and while you are just are talking children are being placed in the facilities and are being abused and i guess my question is how long will you be talking and when can we have some action so these children can be  taken the agency known as docs that oversees this program in the last year we've seen tremendous improvements in our relationships with the h s we we anticipate getting much better results  so i also sit on the department of homeland security this may be a question then i need to ask them as well and we are we have a good working relationship with them now and we are already seeing improved results musically and then  strong thank you very much mr chairman good morning as you know the major medical or organizations such as american medical association the american academy of pediatrics the society for adolescent medicine the american nurses association the institute of medicine and the american public health association believe that sex education programs that include mind you that include information about abstinence and contraception are the best way to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections including hiv and aids so i want to find out with regard to this budget if it contains any money for these comprehensive  prevention programs that cover abstinence and com contraception we do not have the authority to fund comprehensive sex education in a c f so the answer is no we do not propose funding for comprehensive sex ed so it's zero what's your rationale only that you just don't have the authority or because if the authority is needed don't you think you should ask for the authority because in fact this denies access to not having the funding does deny access to the critical and comprehensive information when it could prevent pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections there are other agencies at h h s fraud or authority than we have and i know that there are funded or or not is a does anyone know where it's funded if it's funded because it's my understanding that well that it's not funded and also i know the thirteen states have already bal you waited their federally funded title five abstinence only programs and not a single one has found a positive long term packed also the evaluation done in the president's home state of texas and this evaluation and let me quote it says seems to be more concerned about politics than kids and we need to get over that in my own home state of california and in maine and new jersey these programs have even been deemed so extreme that it's essentially illegal to teach them in a publicly funded setting and state governments there have opted to reject federal funding for these programs because it's an abstinence only funding stream that is  are so the question is how do we justify the funding level here in your program let alone an increase i believe you do have a an increase for abstinence only in your budget yes ma'am we do  there is research on both comprehensive sex education programs and abstinence programs neither sort of programs what i would consider you know gold standards for research there is no gold standard for resources such as comprehensive sex as effective or ineffective similarly there is no gold standard level of resources so given that don't you think that states should be allowed to determine what their gold standard should be if it makes sense and absolutely certain states absolute then why wouldn't you advocate for a change in this policy why wouldn't we advocate be able to fund comprehensive abstinence there is a significant amount of comprehensive sex ed funding in the throughout the country already far more than is allocated for absence of station nationwide funded through the federal government comprehensive sex education i think primarily states and counties now but i'm asking about our federal dollars because states are penalized for applying for federal funds unless it's an abstinence only strategy and i'm saying why wouldn't you given what you said that it's a mixed bag allow states to determine their mixed bag and figure out what makes sense for them and advocate for a policy change so that federal funds can be used to promote whatever type of comprehensive or abstinence only and they should have that they want to promote i think what i was trying to say is that  abstinence education has been ignored in the past some extent whereas research shows that absence education programs do in fact have very positive outcomes for children i think the most recent study showed that those children who received abstinence education were had fewer sexual encounters they had fewer partners  but at the same time when choosing to have sex did not have any lesser incidence of use of a condom has there been any peer reviewed studies  on abstinence only until marriage programs they're neither sort of sex ed programs without any sort of a gold standard but we are currently fund beginning to fund such as a research federal funds to help our young people understand how to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of facts transmitted infection and i hope you look at that power see it and read it thank you m chairman i have a question relate this but i want to correct something that i said earlier we talked a little bit about those tax cuts i think i said the top five percent pay top five percent income tax payers in this country pay about a third of the tax bill actually is the top one percent pays thirty seven percent of taxes top five percent pays fifty seven percent of the taxes so we're getting a pretty good  back to this to this budget while many programs administered by a c f have been proposed for reduction for zero eight there is a sixty eight million dollars increase proposed for refugee and entrant assistance programs why is that for the refugees we serve so they can maintain and we expecting a new wave of refugees and and others from around the world i believe this is an inflation adjustment to meet to provide the same level of service for additional spending that for two reasons we do expect additional kids to enter our system as the h s strengthens its unfortunate actions and then we also are experiencing longer lengths stay of our children in our shelters my notes say unaccompanied alien children so thirty nine million dollar increase the total budget of one hundred thirty five million dollars provides care for him to surveyed id number of unaccompanied alien minors who are apprehended in the u s funding is increased threefold since two thousand and three because of enhanced border protection efforts what do you do with those kids when we take custody of those children they immediately go into our shelters from those shelters they can be released to an appropriate adult sponsor in the u s or in the u s they can these are kids coming from where they come from marilee countries all over the world but we see large numbers coming from guatemala and other south american and such from our american countries and our they are unaccompanied these are young people coming here crossing the border on their own yes or and many kids actually have been in this country for quite some time there might be chinese or indian children or other countries or children from other countries who have been in this country for a long time do they then go to our schools and get our medicaid and those things the only children who have access to the other federal benefits would be those who are either refugees they would not be part of this program or are determined to be victims of trafficking if they are t victims of trafficking they are issued a letter of eligibility and then they can access other federal benefits are they returned home the victims of trafficking don't know the these are well generally speaking the unaccompanied alien minors most unaccompanied alien minors are returned home some are returned before we even take custody of them they request to be returned immediately after t h s apprehends others come into our care and then they go through the regular immigration see the budget request includes one hundred six million dollars for programs to prevent identify and treat child abuse this is a ten million dollar increase over oh seven which i understand to be dedicated to encouraging states to use existing funding streams for home visitations by nurses can you can you explain why resources need to be focused on bringing nurses into the home rather than relying on traditional social workers a fight with a suit find things that social workers wouldn't normally find is that the idea yes or i think that is exactly right and the nurses who under the the old model these nurses have to be experienced nurses and these experienced nurses have working with these mother and the program begins while the mothers is pregnant and then continues for two years after the birth of the child the long term results are amazing when the children reach age fifteen this is so this is thirteen years after the interventions of seized by the nurses by age fifteen children from these families i believe are sixty percent less likely to be arrested similarly sixty percent less less likely to be found guilty of a crime other  health effects are measurable the children are far less likely to need mental health counseling medical assistance it really is a phenomenal program just so i understand and i'm not sure i do these are these are homes where child proof of child abuse has been proven and these are new children coming into the family no survey that the families that are eligible to receive this is systems are  first time mothers from low income families ok so this is all mothers this is for mothers in who are receiving care enough in the sarsour who are receiving tanna no it's not limited to tennis all right my time is expired oh all of i'd like to find a bit more about this program it sounds very effective it is thank you it has been tested three different times with with very similar results thank you thank m testimony here and it says this part of the benefits of this program include school readiness prenatal health seems like a heck of a program my question is if it's so effective why is it only being increased by ten million dollars and why are we only spending one hundred six million on thank you got an answer for you many states implement programs like this model  many states has implemented the model judiciously other states of not adopted all parts of the model what we've discovered is that it is very important when implement that it is implemented precisely and when corners have been cut has improved the same level of results so it's very important that the model be rolled out carefully and accurately how long have we been funding this program at the federal level i don't think the federal government has ever found of this program it's been it's funded at the state level in a number of states versions of it  're saying this is the first time we've funded this program this the president's request is is that's right the federal government is never one of this model to to my knowledge i hope i hope that we can find a way to implement this in a way that that creates the kind of results that we all want and you know i'm looking at the community services block grant money being zeroed out for ineffectiveness and i haven't been around or on this committee long enough to know if that's true or not but it seems to me that if we have a program like this that is effective that we should we should really look get putting some more money into this thing to save us some some money in the long run and the benefits of some of these women and new parents having nurses in their homes and visiting them i think is unbelievable the the other hearings that we have in this committee deal with education and in the competitive nature of our world now and everyone is telling us from c e o republicans to you know liberal democrats in the social services that we need a competitive workforce and we need to educate our kids and if we have a program here that provides for school readiness and prenatal health and all these other things i think we really need to look at it so i hope you're going to be want to work with us to find out how we discipline the system to make sure we get the kind of results that that we want having said that can you explain the community services block grant being zeroed out you know deals with issues  and determined to be very effective the nature of the community service block grants does not allow for measurements of it it's also duplicative many other federal programs i believe that there are over a dozen other federal programs that provide funding for the same sorts of things to see if the jeep grand ultimate grantees do you know addition not only are we on able to measure the benefits of it it's a formula grant program to the states and then the states real or those funds on a noncompetitive basis so the ultimate grantees don't have to prove results to anybody and we can't hold either the grantees or the states accountable eight billion dollars requests covering the nine hundred nineteen thousand low income children my question is how many low income children are eligible would be eligible for head start  and how much money would we need how many billions more would we need to cover all of those kids i am sure i will not be able to provide a satisfactory response to you it's just a number i mean the ditch should be in a number of kids that are low income and would qualify and how much we would need to fund that is the problem i so in many respects we are already reaching the limit of children who want to be in headstart now of course there are other locations there certainly cations in the country where there are waiting lists to get on head start but overall our grantees are struggling to meet fall and all that now so there's waiting lists to get in the head start in the way the head start allocation works is that some states get more money than other so in some states there is a like a higher likelihood that there would be a waiting list and in other states and we don't have any figures as to how many kids are on waiting lists to get in the head start programs we  will look into this for you but this is a trickier issue than one might assume initially to try to figure out exactly how many kids might be on waiting lists or places where they've got a list for i mean there's a waiting list so they're going to be lists of these are not you know like a state waiting list many states have for things like child care these are individual head start centers in my hometown of manhattan kansas and another small communities all over the country and in large cities most of our grantees most the centers do not have waiting lists some do i don't know if we've ever tried to do a survey to see exactly how many kids might be on a waiting list but i'll get answers for you you know you know whatever the low income you know goals are what you have to qualify in order to qualify we should be able to get that and then just saying closing  chairman you know these programs this head start and the nurses for newborns and these are critical we're not going to be competitive country if we don't fund these programs at the level they need to be funded that and i'm you know it doesn't matter to me what party you belong to we have a long term competitiveness issues we have a poverty rate in this country that these programs get those kids living in poverty we need them on the field we only have three hundred million people in the country and we're competing against one point three billion in china one billion in india we can't afford to actually know in two thousand and seven what programs are working and not funding them at the levels we need to be fun and so i look forward to working with the to outline how we do this children issue there have been reports that customs and border patrol detain unaccompanied alien children in border patrol jail cells and i have failed to transfer the children to the office of refugee  resettlement within the required seventy two hours as mandated in addition once the children are transferred to are some children have reported that they were used and mistreated well in the c b p custody it is your responsibility to to address this issue yet according to the lutheran immigration and refugee services there really hasn't been much progress to address this issue can you tell us what the o r has done to resolve the problem of transporting unaccompanied alien children from customs patrol to or are within the seventy two hours of the after hai and also if it would be preferable for or are to assume the transportation responsibilities if reimbursed by d h if who has a million other things that they're dealing with right  now we have a very good relook working relationship with el i r s and we work with them on this issue and as i previously said we now have a good relationship with d h us this is one of the issues that we have been discussing with  fortunately i can report to you that we've seen very significant improvement in in the last eighteen months on this issue i just saw data yesterday much as i was preparing for the for the but on another matter and like i will not be able to recall the other points i know that in two thousand and five d h just believe that i think there were seventy two children who remained in their custody for more than seventy two hours because of a lack of available but space within a four hour commute to one of our facilities and in just one year that number has decreased from i believe seventy two to twenty four or more thirty four so we've seen a lot of improvement just within the last year and we need to to do even better at the question is when when do you plan to solve the problems so that the number of children that are being detained and potentially abuse in these to phyllis is zero we are rapidly on our way to solving this problem we have seen great improvements in the last eighteen months or so but you don't have you haven't set a deadline by when you have to solve this so that next year we could come back and still be talking about this i mean can can there be some commitment that it will be resolved at least sometime within this year so that we don't have to revisit this issue next year i wish i could say it would be let me ask the day what will it take to resolve it what is it that congress or this committee has to do in order to ensure that these children are not put in these situations where  potentially abuse what is it that that we can do then to make it happen the minute we versus them but that way you know to be frank with you i think the burden is on us not you right now we are looking at where but space is our but space is generally in close proximity to where the up pensions are there are some facilities we have stood up to address the special needs of children whether it's for physical handicaps or because of security issues those facilities today those from seattle washington indiana and a third in texas we take the custody of a child who has special needs or one day just as it can be tricky for us to get that child to seattle if that's the best location for the child can we replace that seattle facility with one closer to the border for more apprehensions take place that's an issue we've got a look at ok i need to i want to get to one more question and and then again it has to do with the unaccompanied a alien children there have been some shocking reports about unaccompanied children a facing perilous circumstances upon deportation including death and in response to these reports congress directed d h s s in two thousand seven to work with the department of state and the office of refugee resettlement to develop policies and procedures to ensure that these children are safely repatriated to their home countries including placement with their families or other  sponsoring agencies still we are getting reports that children are are being deported you know to unsafe circumstances in their home country what is or  again doing to guarantee that families or other sponsor agencies are secured to meet the children upon his or her deportation and what specific actions are being taken to work with the apartment of state to improve policies and procedures concerning these children and i hope the answer isn't going to be worse we're still working on it because you know this again i've said this before this is an issue that has been brought  before this committee to two our for years it's not new and the response that you know we're working on it well children are still being are suffering being the pews and being killed is certainly is just not satisfactory if you can respond if you want i know i'm out of time but i'd also like the response for the record in more detail under the circumstances i'm familiar with primarily are those who are victims of human trafficking where a trafficker might under threat of of injury or death to a parent or another family member back in the home country forces a child to come to this country and work and we are working very aggressively in our ducks salaries and in our other programs a c f and department of wide to help identify victims of human trafficking and when identified to issue letters of eligibility so that those children are not put in harm's proposes an additional thirty nine staff be hired at the same time you're reducing your budget by a billion dollars many of those the from the block grant program so they'll be fewer people  ministering those black grants in the processing of those grant requests why would you need to be adding staff when you're dramatically we're to see your overall budget the majority of our administration budget request  plus of ten million dollars is actually programmatically oriented to address improper payments for tana child care and tennis tennis childcare and foster care so the majority of those additional funds are actually program medically oriented the same program medically oriented these these folks was to root out fraud because there is a this is not for staffing this or i'm sorry it is for staffing for these programs to identify the improper payments now improper payments can be a term that can be easily misinterpreted to to mean fraud  or abuse what it can mean simply is is a check to make sure that when states seek reimbursement it is for the appropriate  activity but the money going out to the states actually is going to decrease right well with things like foster care it's a mandatory program so states submit reimbursement requests for section for the reimbursement rates and you know that money goes out the door we need to make sure that we are able to determine whether those forty payments are in fact appropriate ok the budget request includes a new ten million dollar program through reward states that perform timely home valuations for adoptions regardless of state boundaries  well are the studies that you can share with the subcommittee that illustrate the positive outcomes associated with timely placement of chilled and to save homes and is there or are there a number of  interstate placements of children this is an authorization that was was not in ministration proposal so that we don't have specific data on this my understanding is that there are i believe there have last year there were five thousand interstate adoptions that might go as high as nine thousand in the next year instances would be just a portion of the larger number of adoptions i do not know how many adoptions are made every year in this country ok but getting back to the original point when you said ninety five to nine thousand interstate social i believe last year there were five thousand interstate adoptions associate with with our federal efforts ok and this is a new program so you don't have any history on its effectiveness that's right sir it was authorization that was passed last year ok thank you very much like mr chairman mr jackson we are making the types of investments necessary to the to achieve the goals we hoped for with that in mind i noted funding for your department's native american programs has been  sential a flat funded for the past five years these are extremely important programs providing funding for economic development projects professional capacity building skills financial literacy just to name a few as your peer to be very familiar with it there are incredible disparities on native american lands across almost all the indicators including economic development and job growth given these disparities do you really believe  your uncle the great math i think i have good news about our national native americans the commissioner of an a quantum stamps has really done a phenomenal job in revamping the whole program so that its funding really does focus on economic development and real tribal needs it's an example of how we need to make sure that our programs are in fact effective and directing funds to those programs that are measurable and produce results that we can be proud of our stamps has done a great job with this program in making sure that the funds are directed in the most productive ways in terms of bang for the buck we've seen real and improvements the the the challenge is so enormous as you know  and and i don't see with these numbers how we can really make a dent i mean from my perspective i have i have within new mexico the state has twenty two tribes now some of them are doing very well because of the gaming situation probably about half of them where there is no unemployment but the other half you talk about fifty percent employment or above  and you know if there was unemployment of that level in the united states i mean we would call it a real emergency as all of us know our history during the great depression we only had twenty five percent employment in the nation and that was considered a major emergency and president roosevelt moved in in a very aggressive way and so i just get very frustrated it's not i'm not taking it out on you but i'm going to ask in the context of these programs that we're putting in place  why we aren't making a dance at those numbers because as long as i've been around observing this a boy wanted to state attorney general for eight years and now in the congress we should be able to start showing some measurable results if we're doing the right thing and i take what you're saying you are you are working at trying to target those dollars the ones you have to the right areas and and to build that capacity and do all of those things and while i just have a second left here let me also say that i one of the the things you mentioned is a native american scholarship program under the more skewed off foundation that i is and is an effort there to i think have native americans come to washington and work in the executive branch the legislative branch across the board in a variety of agencies and gain the knowledge and experience so wherever they are many of them return to their tribes they're able to step out and and and really push some of them are in the federal government and in a variety of positions able to understand what's happening and be able to make a difference but you have any other thoughts on that just to close here maybe i'll be very creative in responding to different ways that might get me in trouble  first of all reagan's president reagan's first interior secretary was recently quoted as when asked if you having read any regrets is one regret was that he was not able to accomplish more from a from americans secondly i had an idea as you were sitting here we have internship programs for college students states yes and maybe we need to partner them more skewed all foundation and see if we can get scholarship students into our internship program so i could good idea thank you very much mr chairman and i appreciate very much mr jackson you're you're putting me on the hot spot fast here i hope it gave you a little time to think well we're going to shift now it's mr regular and then at eleven thirty i think the bells are going to ring for a vote so after mr regular will have time for one more question which will be mr judge and then we'll dismiss mr regular thank you thank you mr chairman mr schneider two years ago i was approached about a program which maintains electronic records of critical medical education and other pertinent data of foster care youth  a move from place to place i understand that nearly six hundred thousand children reside in some form of foster care and more than a third will move between caregivers at least three times annually and not uncommon upwards of thirty times during their term in the system for example when life histories leg behind foster youth moves critical health and school information are not kept up to date and as a result these youth are unable to obtain needed medical care schooling and social services incomplete records result in over in mean is a poor follow up for health conditions and significant significant gently delayed school enrollment one year i was then chairman i was able to fund this is a national air mart but this initiative ought to be funded by your agency as a as a regular program one are you familiar with the program and second records to make those records more consistent so that they can be shared and more must be done children who end up in foster care  in those situations for a variety of reasons all of them horrible they don't have their own advocates their prospects not bright overall  this is an issue that is of create concern to the administration and to me personally we must do better well i guess my question is are you continuing the program in the absence of a specific caremark in other words that are you continuing the program under your own budget if if it's the program that i am thinking of where we are working with states to get them to improve their computer systems i believe the answer is  yes but we'll have to get back to you on that so records don't always follow the young people or the foster individual as much as they should probably that's absolutely true i guess seems to me that would be essential if that individuals to have medical attention education etc there are a number as you know sir there are a number of organizations that are sitting down now trying to figure out what foster care to look like and i look forward to working with you and others on this committee and others in congress to figure out what foster care really ought to look like and how we can do better for these children one other question why do you believe about yours or an effective way to increase participation in the manner schip program  mentoring children of prisoners program for them very effective we are ahead of schedule now in actually matching children to qualified adult mentors what we are finding is that there are some children who are too far in proximity to a qualified to a grant one of our grantees but if the child were provided a voucher they could go to a certified mentoring organization nearby that may not actually get mentoring have a mentoring grant from us so we are not proposing batch rise in the whole program actually just a very small part of it that will give flexibility to children who are in rural areas or in urban areas where that where the grantee might already be fully booked but another mentor mentoring organization could provide services well essentially you're trying to make sure every child gets a fair shot committee on february sixth he referred to abstinence only programs as quote part of the etiology of this administration and you can expect that we will continue to offer these proposals in europe budget there is an increase  over the fiscal year two thousand and six and two thousand and seven levels consistent with the secretary's statements secretary leavitt said this despite the fact that there remains not a single sound peer reviewed study showing that abstinence only until marriage programs work to help young people make good decisions in the long term meanwhile over the last three years i have shown mountains of evidence to the administration and to the subcommittee that the title seven health programs administered by her so do work title seven programs that aim to reduce health disparities shouldn't h h s and a c f be basing their programming on the evidence and not mere etiology and does that mean that reducing health disparities and not part of the administration's ideology that ask two questions to answer the first question is yes the answer the second question is no yes we should be funding those programs that are research based and not based on politics  you're against the secretary's position that abstinence only programs without a shred of evidence are programs that should not be funding funded under the president's present request that assertion is inconsistent with the research stare as i said earlier there isn't a gold standard of research for either comprehensive sex ed or abstinence education there are peer reviewed research there has been peer reviewed research done on both they are not research has been done and published just recently a paper was presented by a very respected sex education researcher that showed that abstinence education actually does have benefits and this his announcement was a bit surprising to people based on that so let me be clear priories on this one research document that has been submitted by one sex education researcher with what constitutes sex education research but we're justifying an increase over the fiscal year two thousand and six and two thousand and seven enacted going to be ongoing studies studies that have been completed there are lots of studies out there on this whether it's an absence or ansatz sex ed there's not a single study for either side of sex education programs that would meet the cult standard respected researchers who have worked in this field and have produced research and studies show that abstinence education is effective is that research the basis for the increase over the fiscal year zero six level in part and  outcomes that have been associated with children who has had abstinence education are very good thank i'd like you to respond to some of the members here in writing on their questions i don't believe that they were sufficient and they could be looked at more detail for instance the foster care question that was asked by mr regular  how is the programs that were funded by your marks being funded by a c s budget and are you accept you know absorbing responsibilities if not why not them if you that said it fails to require us department health and human services really fails to incline medical accuracy on the vast majority of federally funded programs including abstinence only but let me just ask about this posted for the community based abstinence education program posted in january two thousand and six the entire curriculum of course the term marriage must be defined as only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife and the word spouse refers only to a person the bapa sex who is a husband and wife consistent with federal law but in addition points of d n a of a point definition of abstinence education programs say and let me just mention the any teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is expect is the expected standard of human sexual activity and that it teaches it must teach that sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects and i'm sure you're aware that many of our great students in this country are gay and lesbian and so how does this affect our young people given the ongoing stigma that this place is on them and the discrimination of gay and lesbian youth which is already live quite frankly to higher rates of harassment absenteeism and even flew aside and how does this message work i mean doesn't this have harmful psychological and physical effects  these kids let me try to address all three questions that you've raised in terms of medical accuracy we do require all of our abstinence frenchies to be medically accurate issue that g a o is looking at was whether we believe that section three seventeen p specifically applied to us we have said wherever it does apply to us we will comply but in any event all of our grantees have to be medically accurate and where we find that they are not we require them to come into compliance  in terms of marriage we are simply trying to be faithful to federal law i understand that but tell me about the discrimination harassment and segmentation i wrong young people who are gay and lesbian and how this affects them obviously you know don't you hear about that i mean i know complying with lies one thing but what happens in the instances of gay and lesbian children should never be discriminated against they should never be harmed or ridiculed  we would encourage abstinence education addressed to them to be consistent with this grant announcement and that abstinence is the safest notices best outcomes and you said that you have possibly two hundred million dollars left in emergency or contingency funds if new york needed their backup that's about fifty one million that's affecting two hundred two thousand folks in california it's a little before million so in addition to the hundred fifty seven million we just released on monday on the block they're still on the block they're still just over two hundred million dollars left in the contingency fund and the states can apply for of i'm not sure whether it's a portion or all of that contingency fund now we are evaluating the temperatures the fuel prices and about making those evaluations in the context of the fact that we've just released a hundred fifty seven million dollars to the states shortfall perhaps you can get back just the shortfall that are complaining about is that with consideration the money that you just released i don't just look at in those you haven't read it when i believe in states were concerned about having a shortfall they were not aware that we were just about to release one hundred fifty seven million dollars that's a bit presumptuous on my part maybe if somebody from the governor's office were sitting here they'd say no we knew you were going to release about one hundred fifty seven and we you know we're still ok