Cass Ballenger: “I rise in support of H.R. 4250 and address my remarks to title IV of the bill, the Family Resource and Support Act…”

“I rise in support of H.R. 4250 and address my remarks to title IV of the bill, the Family Resource and Support Act, which was developed jointly by Select Education and Civil Rights Subcommittee Chairman Major Owens and me. The Family Resource and Support Act breaks the tradition in Congress of creating separate programs for the disabled and the non-disabled. Instead, this program creates a single approach to statewide systems change and coordination of existing resources that can help all families--including families of children that are disabled. Since all families need many of the same basic supports--community services information, help with day care, family and parental support, and training--it makes sense just to have one system that helps all kinds of families. And for those families of children with disabilities or other special circumstances, the communitywide planning process will help identify and develop approaches to meet their unique needs. It is also important to note that we have maintained the competitive nature of this program instead of transforming it to a formula grant, and that we maintained a more realistic authorization level of $30 million instead of the Senate's excessive figure of $75 million. I should point out that I would support a greater degree of program consolidation than we achieved in this bipartisan proposal, and I hope that we will consider more consolidations during the conference process.”