The Senate was expected by the end of last week to complete action on a $3.7-billion jobs-creation measure that would increase federal spending for education and for summer youth employment by a total of $350 million in the current fiscal year.
As approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, the bill, HR 1718, would provide an additional $60 million for construction in school districts that receive federal impact aid, $40 million for the construction of “barrier-free” entries in schools, $50 million for public-library construction, $100 million for the College Work Study program, and $100 million to provide jobs for young people this summer.
The Senate also approved a nonbinding amendment to the bill offered by Senator Bill Bradley, Democrat of New Jersey, expressing the “sense of the Senate” that the federal education budget should not be reduced, in the fiscal year 1983, from the current budget of $15.1 billion.
The Administration had asked the Congress to rescind $1.2 billion in the 1983 education budget.
Aides to Senator Bradley and Senator Daniel P. Moynihan, Democrat of New York, said the Senators planned to offer another amendment to the measure that would restore federal assistance for school districts implementing desegregation plans.
That amendment was identical to a bill introduced in the chamber early last month by Senator Moynihan to reauthorize the Emergency School Aid Act and to separate it from the federal education block grant. Senator Moynihan’s bill would set spending for the desegregation-assistance program at $177.9 million in fiscal 1984.
Less Additional Money
Earlier this month, the House passed a $4.6-billion version of the so-called “emergency” supplemental appropriations bill. The House version of the bill provided less additional money for education programs in the current fiscal year, including $35 million for school construction in impact-aid districts, $100 million for the summer youth-employment program, and $30 million for the Head Start program.
The House and the Senate were expected to work out a final compromise on the jobs-creation measure and to send it to President Reagan for his signature before Tuesday of this week.
On that day, the federal government and many states were scheduled to run out of money to pay unemployment benefits to jobless workers, and a separate section of the bill would provide $5 billion to avoid that shortfall.
