Information on the Sequestration

Got this lovely email today:

As you are likely aware, Congress has not reached a deal on balanced deficit reduction to avoid the across-the-board budget reductions commonly known as “sequestration.”  Thus, the President was required by law to issue a sequestration order.  This order cancels approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the Federal government for the remainder of the Federal fiscal year. 

Given your relationship with the Corporation for National and Community Service, we wanted to provide you with information about how these unfortunate budget cuts will affect our programs. 

CNCS’s senior leadership team has engaged in extensive planning efforts to mitigate the effect of these cuts. In planning how to implement a possible sequestration, our guiding principle has been to protect the ability to perform our core mission on behalf of the American people.   While these types of cuts are painful, we have carefully considered how to use the various tools at our disposal to reduce costs and mitigate to the extent possible the disruption to our operations, to our programs, and to all of you.  

The information below describes the potential impacts of sequestration for the current VISTA members.  

Impact on VISTA Members

While sequestration will have a significant impact on the VISTA program moving forward, CNCS will honor all current agreements allowing for a full year of service for existing VISTA members.  CNCS will manage the funding reductions by reducing or cancelling new placements, decreasing the resources provided to the summer associate program, and reducing other internal and program overhead costs.

Once again, I’d like to take this opportunity to acknowledge your dedication to serving the American people. Should you have any questions about any of the items discussed here then please contact your supervisor.

Also read this:

"According to a report by the National Human Services Assembly, the CNCS could face an 8.2 percent cut in funding due to sequestration.It could get worse for the CNCS — a bill passed in the House called "The Path to Prosperity," which contains more than $5.3 trillion in cuts over 10 years and includes measures to eliminate the CNCS all together"