Testimony

Match 24, 2004

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, I am honored to appear before you to discuss the President's budget request for the Administration for Children and Families for FY 2005. William Beldon, the Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary, Budget, joins me at the table. The FY 2005 budget request for ACF totals $46.6 billion - $32.7 billion in entitlement funds ($2.8 billion below the FY 2004 budget, primarily due to reductions to our budget authority for one-time funding needs included in FY 2004) and $13.9 billion in discretionary spending, a 3.9 percent increase over the FY 2004 budget. This budget request demonstrates the President's and the Secretary's commitment to strengthen families, protect children and improve social services for our nation's most vulnerable children and families.

Marriage and Healthy Family Development

This year, reflecting our commitment to strengthening families, the President is proposing a new Marriage and Healthy Family Development Initiative. This initiative is supported by funding increases and encompasses new and existing programs in both mandatory and discretionary funding categories as described below.

Building on the considerable success of welfare reform, the FY 2005 budget maintains the framework of the Administration's welfare reform reauthorization proposal. The initial reform efforts, as you know, produced significant success in moving families off welfare rolls, into work, and out of poverty and I am grateful that the Congress is moving closer to concluding its work on welfare reform. In addition to maintaining funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to States and Tribes, matching grants to territories, and the Tribal work program, the FY 2005 budget includes increased funding for two key provisions in our welfare reform package to support the President's Marriage and Healthy Family Development Initiative.

The family formation and healthy marriage provisions recognize that children who grow up in healthy married families are less likely to experience a host of negative outcomes compared to those who do not. To this end, beginning with the 2005 budget, $20 million would be added under TANF to support research, demonstrations, and technical assistance primarily focused on family formation strategies and healthy marriages, and $20 million would be added for matching grants to States, Territories and Tribes for innovative approaches to promoting healthy marriage and reducing out-of-wedlock births. The total annual funding for each of these initiatives would increase to $120 million. With the proposed dollar-for-dollar match in the grant program, a total of $360 million in Federal and State funding then would be available to broaden the President's efforts to support healthy marriages and promote effective family formation.

Since over 25 million children live in homes without fathers, the discretionary budget also includes $50 million for the Presidential initiative to assist non-custodial fathers in becoming more involved in their children's lives in positive ways. These dedicated funds would spur State- and community-level efforts to assist fathers to be more actively involved in the lives of their children and encourage the formation and stability of healthy marriages.

In addition, the President announced a commitment to double the funding for abstinence education delivered in schools and community-based settings. The discretionary budget requests $186 million, an increase of $112 million, for community-based abstinence grants focused on educating teens and parents about the health risks associated with early sexual activity and providing teens with the tools they need to make responsible choices. The budget also reflects the President's request to reauthorize State-based abstinence education grants for five years at $50 million as part of the welfare reform reauthorization.

The FY 2005 budget requests a shift of these authorities from the Health Resources and Services Administration to ACF in an effort to incorporate abstinence education into the Department's efforts to promote positive youth development.

Furthermore, since child abuse and neglect continues to be a significant problem in the U.S., the budget proposes nearly doubling the funding level for two key child abuse programs reauthorized this past year as part of the Keeping Children and Families Safe Act of 2003. The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment State Grants, funded at $42 million, a $20 million increase, would enable State child protective service systems to expand post-investigative services for child victims, shorten the time to the delivery of post-investigative services, and/or increase services to other at-risk families. Likewise the Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention program, funded at $65 million, a $32 million increase, would boost the availability of prevention services to an additional 55,000 children and their families. It has been over eight years since either of these programs received a significant increase in funding and I am extremely pleased that we are proposing such funding levels to increase efforts to both prevent child abuse and neglect and intervene in cases of reported child abuse and neglect.

Community and Faith-Based Initiative

Beyond the funding noted in the Marriage and Healthy Family Development Initiative, a significant portion of which is available to faith-based and community organizations, the ACF budget includes several Administration initiatives targeted to community and faith based organizations. Specifically, our proposal for FY 2005 would substantially increase the Compassion Capital Fund by $52.3 million over the $47.7 million appropriated in FY 2004. The funds for this key Presidential initiative would continue to be used for grants to intermediary organizations to provide training and technical assistance to faith-based and community organizations as well as smaller, one-time capacity-building grants made directly to faith-based and community organizations. Similarly, we are requesting an increase of $10 million for Maternity Group Homes to help break the cycle of abuse and poverty often faced by young pregnant women and their children who lack safe and stable environments in which to live. Further, we are seeking $50 million for the President's Mentoring Children of Prisoners program to continue support for this vulnerable population. As a group, these children are less likely than their peers to succeed in school and more likely to engage in risky behavior such as substance abuse and sexual activity.

Child Welfare

This FY 2005 budget reflects our commitment to bolstering the child welfare system and supporting those who need help transitioning from foster care. Building on the significant increases in the child abuse programs mentioned earlier in my testimony, the President's FY 2005 budget also requests $140 million for the Independent Living Program and $60 million, a $15 million increase, for the Independent Living Education and Training Vouchers program, expanding our ability to provide education and training vouchers for youth who "age out" of foster care. Additionally, to support the Administration's commitment to helping families in crisis and to protecting children from abuse and neglect, the President's FY 2005 Budget requests $505 million, full funding, of the Promoting Safe and Stable Families program, another key Presidential initiative. Also, $32 million is requested for Adoption Incentives - to fully fund all incentives earned by the States. Finally, the Administration is proposing a nearly $5 billion entitlement budget for foster care as well as continued support for the President's child welfare program option, that would provide states more flexibility in both the population served and activities funded.

Head Start and Child Care

The Administration also is committed to providing high quality, comprehensive child development services to Head Start children and families, while continuing our efforts to strengthen and enhance school readiness and the development of early literacy skills. The proposed increase of $168.7 million would be used to award all Head Start programs sufficient funds to offset inflationary increases and provide competitive salaries for staff while maintaining FY 2004 enrollment levels. Head Start staff with salaries in excess of $100,000 would be precluded from receiving any of these increased funds.

Also supported by this increase is $45 million for a pilot project that would allow up to nine States to coordinate their State pre-K, Head Start, and child care programs in a comprehensive system that would address the needs of low-income, pre-school children and their families. Child care provides a much needed support for family self-sufficiency. The FY 2005 budget request maintains the historically high level of funding dedicated to this purpose in both the Child Care and Development Block Grant, at $2.1 billion, and the Child Care Entitlement, at $2.7 billion. States also would continue to have flexibility to provide child care services using TANF funds and Social Services Block Grant funds. In addition, under our welfare reform proposal States would have the ability to use unobligated TANF balances (approximately $2.3 billion at the end of FY 2003) on services such as child care.

Other Critical Funding Requests

Finally, our budget includes other critical supports for helping families achieve independence, meet home energy needs, and start a new life in this country.

The FY 2005 budget builds on the high level of success achieved by the Child Support Enforcement Program, by focusing on critical improvements in the arena of collecting medical support on behalf of children. These proposals build on the policies in the FY 2003 and FY 2004 budgets that enhance opportunities to increase child support, offering an impressive $3 billion in increased child support payments to families over five years, at a cost of $105 million.

In order to meet the increasing demands for home energy assistance for vulnerable populations, we are proposing an increase of over $100 million to double the Contingency Fund and support a new evaluation component for the program.

To help those newly arrived in this country who are in especially fragile circumstances, our FY 2005 proposal requests $473 million for programs serving refugees, asylees, Cubans/Haitians, victims of torture and trafficking, and unaccompanied alien children, a net increase of $26 million. This represents the amount needed to maintain current assistance levels and meet the needs of unaccompanied alien children in Federal custody who became ACF's responsibility under the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

The President's Management Agenda

The FY 2005 request for Federal Administration is $190 million-an increase of $12 million over the FY 2004 enacted level. This funding level would sustain the FY 2004 workforce level of 1,425 FTEs, The request also includes $2 million to further reduce erroneous payments through the use of the Public Assistance Reporting Information System (PARIS), a voluntary program for States to share public assistance data to maintain program integrity, and sufficient funds to support the Department's IT consolidation efforts and financial management systems.

Conclusion

I am happy to have had this opportunity to provide you with the highlights of our proposed FY 2005 budget. This budget provides a fiscally responsible and balanced approach to promote healthy families; improve and sustain our commitment to serving vulnerable children, struggling families, and special populations; and, support the President's Management Agenda and key priorities. We look forward to working with the Congress on achieving our mission and objectives, and I welcome your questions.

Dr. Wade F. Horn
Assistant Secretary for Children and Families

Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. was named the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on July 30, 2001. The Administration for Children and Families is responsible for programs that promote the social and economic well-being of families. ACF's programs include Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, foster care, adoption assistance, family preservation and support, Head Start, child care, child support enforcement, runaway and homeless youth, low income home energy assistance, community services, refugee resettlement, mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

Prior to this appointment, Dr. Horn was President of the National Fatherhood Initiative, whose mission is to improve the well-being of children by increasing the number of children growing up with involved, committed and responsible fathers in their lives.

From 1989-1993, Dr. Horn was the Commissioner for Children, Youth and Families and Chief of the Children's Bureau in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families. He also served as a Presidential appointee to the National Commission on Children from 1990-1993, was a member of the National Commission on Childhood Disability from 1994-1995, and the U.S. Advisory Board on Welfare Indicators from 1996-1997. Prior to these appointments, Dr. Horn was the Director of Outpatient Psychological Services at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University. From 1993 to 2001, Dr. Horn was also an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University's Public Policy Institute, and an affiliate scholar with the Hudson Institute.

Dr. Horn is the author of numerous articles on children and family issues, including a weekly newspaper column entitled Fatherly Advice, and is the co-author of several books including The Better Homes and Gardens New Father Book (Meredith Books, 1998) and The Better Homes and Gardens New Teen Book (Meredith Books, 1999.) He is also the lead editor of The Fatherhood Movement: A Call to Action (Lexington Books, 1998.) Dr. Horn is frequently featured on television and radio as a child development expert and commentator. He has appeared on NBC's Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, 20/20, 48 Hours, ABC World News Tonight, CNN, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, Fox News Channel, CNN and MS-NBC.

Dr. Horn received his Ph.D. in clinical child psychology from Southern Illinois University in 1981. He lives in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with his wife and two daughters.

Department of Health and Human Services
Office of Budget
William R. Beldon

Mr. Beldon is currently serving as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget, HHS. He has been a Division Director in the Budget Office for 16 years, most recently as Director of the Division of Discretionary Programs. Mr. Beldon started in Federal service as an auditor in the Health, Education and Welfare Financial Management Intern program. Over the course of 30 years in the Budget Office, Mr. Beldon has held Program Analyst, Branch Chief and Division Director positions. Mr. Beldon received a Bachelor's Degree in History and Political Science from Marshall University and attended the University of Pittsburgh where he studied Public Administration. He resides in Fort Washington, Maryland.

Last revised: March 24, 2004

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