Rick Spruill | Corpus Christi Caller Times
CORPUS CHRISTI — Policy decisions in Washington, D.C., are affecting South Texas’ youngest and poorest residents as early intervention programs adjust to less funding.
Sequestration, which took effect March 1, required across the board cuts of about 6 percent in federal spending through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
Deeper cuts, proposed under a federal spending plan for the 2014 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, would cut nondefense, discretionary federal spending by about 20 percent.
The highest profile cuts have led to furlough plans being drafted for civilian workers, such as at the Corpus Christi Army Depot.
But the cuts also are being felt in less obvious ways, such as at Head Start, a federally subsidized program that provides poor children, age birth to 5, with meals, educational programs and other services to build a solid foundation heading into their school years.
U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, said Wednesday during a stop in San Patricio County that sequestration has him worried for the poor of his district.
“The direct impact that sequestration is having on community action networks, and therefore Head Start, is tangible,” Vela said after visiting a Head Start facility in Sinton, in western San Patricio County where Vela’s 34th Congressional District meets the 27th Congressional District of U.S. Representative Blake Farenthold.
The Community Action Corp. of South Texas is a private, nonprofit organization that pulls funding from 21 state and federal contracts and grants, including those available through the Head Start model, said Ann Awalt, the corporation’s interim executive director.
Through their Head Start programs, the corporation serves 1,306 children and families each day in seven South Texas counties, she said. Another 192 infants and toddlers and 31 expectant mothers also are receiving services through Early Head Start.
Sequestration and future budget cuts could curtail Head Start services for about 180 families and leave about 20 full time teachers and teachers aides out of work, Awalt said.
Head Start classrooms in nine communities also are set to close at the end of the 2013 school year. Among them is Premont, the tiny town fighting a move from the state to shut down its school district.
Alice, Hebbronville, Sinton, Taft, Ben Bolt, Orange Grove, Falfurrias, Premont and Kingsville each might lose one room, starting with the 2014 school year. Others will reopen in the fall on a limited basis.
Awalt, who has worked at the corporation for 40 years, said it is troubling to roll back programs that have been so beneficial to so many.
“When you cut programs like that, you cut into the future,” she said.
Also getting caught in the budget vise are elderly residents who could see their home delivered meals cut back. Awalt said the corporation’s program that ensures more than 900 seniors are given a good meal each day also may see cuts.
“Cuts on Head Start is heartbreaking, but nothing like seeing cuts to senior nutritional programs,” Awalt said.
She said a one-time, $50,000 grant from Wal-Mart has helped keep the wheels rolling on the Meals-on-Wheels program that serves Jim Wells, Brooks and San Patricio counties, at least through the end of the fiscal year.
Finding funding may grow even more challenging in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, Vela said.
“By all accounts, the Ryan Budget would have a 20 percent increase in nondefense spending cuts, so you could imagine the effect on programs like this,” Vela said.
Statewide, 86 Head Start programs and nearly twice that number of Early Head Start programs serve almost 70,000 children, according to the Texas Head Start Association.
Overall, the federal government in Fiscal Year 2012 appropriated almost $8 billion into four programs under the Head Start banner, which was first established in 1965, to help children from low income families receive social, educational, health and nutritional care.
That money is distributed to private grantees and local government agencies.
Vela said what is lost under the cuts cannot be measured in economic terms or laid out on a chart.
“By all accounts, these children enter the school district system with an edge that they would not otherwise be offered,” he said.
