On July 31, the Senate Appropriations Committee released and voted 26-3 to advance the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill to the full Senate.
The bill maintains level funding for the Perkins State Grant at $1.4 billion and funds the National Activities account at $10 million. Funding for adult education, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and the Every Student Succeeds Act Title I grant also received level funding in the bill.
The maximum Pell grant award would be $7,395 for the 2026-27 school year. Other programs receiving level funding include Head Start, TRIO, AmeriCorps and Job Corps programs despite the Trump Administration requesting Congress to eliminate these programs. Funding for other programs and offices, including Federal Work Study, Federal Student Aid, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) are sustained at current levels as well.
The bill also contains a variety of new requirements, including:
- ED must maintain the staff necessary to carry out its statutory duties.
- Several provisions require the Department to support the staffing levels necessary for IES, the National Center for Education Statistics and OCR to carry out their duties.
- ED must make formula grants available to states on time.
- Several provisions explicitly require Perkins, adult education and WIOA funds to be distributed to states on time.
During the markup of the bill, Senator Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the committee, voiced her concerns regarding the potential dismantlement of the Education Department (ED) and argued that the shift of Perkins and adult education funds to the Department of Labor (DOL) violated federal laws.
Senator Capito (R-WV), Chair of the Labor, HHS and Education Subcommittee, praised the bipartisan support of the bill and highlighted investments to expand apprenticeship programs in alignment with President Trump’s Executive Order “Preparing Americans for High-paying Skilled Trade Jobs of the Future,” which you can read more about on the blog here.
The committee then proceeded to vote on various amendments to the bill, most of which focused on non-education or labor issues such as research grants at the National Institutes of Health and service delivery at the Social Security Administration. Senator Murphy (D-CT) introduced an amendment that would have prevented the Trump Administration from utilizing funds appropriated to OCR until the agency’s Inspector General determined that the enforcement actions under the office adhered to investigation procedures outlined in statute, but the committee ultimately voted along party lines to not adopt the amendment.
ACTE will continue to monitor this bill as it makes its way to the Senate floor for debate. Please reach out to ACTE’s Government Relations Manager Jimmy Koch (jkoch@acteonline.org) if you have any questions or concerns.
