On August 10, 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would provide $10 billion intended to support local school districts and prevent reported imminent layoffs of teachers and other educators, including school-based speech-language pathologists and audiologists. President Obama signed the bill into law shortly after House passage. The Senate passed the bill the prior week. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that up to 161,000 positions could be saved with this funding.
The bill also provides assistance to states for health care for low income American's through the temporary increase in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) through June 2011. FMAPs are used in determining the amount of federal matching funds for state expenditures for assistance payments, social services, state medical, and medical insurance expenditures.
For more information, please contact Neil Snyder, ASHA's director of federal advocacy, at 800-296-5700 ext. 5614, or nsnyder@asha.org.