A Wisconsin refugee resettlement program is feeling the pain of delayed funding from Congress.

On September 30, lawmakers passed a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through Dec. 16 – but community projects, also known as earmarks, have been put on hold because the government is not yet fully funded.  

What You Need To Know

  • A Wisconsin refugee resettlement program is feeling the pain of delayed funding from Congress

  • On September 30, lawmakers passed a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through Dec. 16 – but community projects, also known as earmarks, have been put on hold because the government is not yet fully funded
  • Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., told Spectrum News in June that a committee advanced all 15 of his Community Project Funding requests

  • Casey Burgat of George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management told Spectrum News the ramification of the "broken budget process" is that approving earmarks can differ completely from funding them 

Earmarks return

After being banned in 2011 due to concerns of corruption, Congress reinstated earmarks in 2022. Now called community project funding, the process allows lawmakers to direct federal dollars to requests in their districts.   

“Almost everyone was taking a part of this new community project funding mechanism to really help out their constituents,” Casey Burgat, director of the Legislative Affairs program at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University said. "And this is the idea that they know their districts’ needs better than people who aren't there.”  

Nearly 5,000 community projects for 345 House members were approved by the House Appropriations Committee as part of the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Appropriations Bills, totaling more than $12 billion.  

But that money won’t be allocated until Congress passes the full FY23 budget.  

Funding in limbo

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., championed the inclusion of over a dozen earmarks for community-led projects in Wisconsin totaling more the $18 million in the FY23 Appropriations Bills.  

“Investments in education, infrastructure, and working families are critical for the well-being of our communities. Today's Appropriations Committee vote acknowledges the importance of these priorities with investments that will benefit all Americans. I’m happy to announce that the committee advanced all 15 of my Community Project Funding requests. These projects will reach all corners of the district and I look forward to voting for these on the House floor,” Pocan, told Spectrum News in June.   

$250,000 was earmarked for the non-profit organization Jewish Social Services of Madison (JSS) to help with their refugee resettlement efforts.  

"We're very grateful to Congressman Pocan for this earmark. And it's our hope that it will be approved and released for our use," Kai Gardner-Mishlove, the executive director of Jewish Social Services of Madison (JSS), Wisconsin, told Spectrum News.  

That money will be invaluable as Dane County has one of the most expensive housing markets in the state. But Gardner-Mishlove says the uncertainty of when they will be funded is affecting their planning.  

"It really has a negative impact on us because a lot of our funding is from grants that are administered within the federal fiscal year, and that ends Sept. 30," she said.   

Gardner-Mishlove says the closer Congress is to passing the budget, the better they’re able to prepare and provide services to clients.  

"People really depend on government funds — from localities to cities to recipients of welfare or temporary assistance," Burgat said.   

Like JSS’s case, Burgat says that uncertainty of when those dollars aren't there can affect how programs are run.  

“The federal government is making short-term decisions at the very, very last minute, that means they're not looking holistically at the federal budget, deciding what priorities they want to support and to what level," Burgat added. "They're basically just continuing what has been already decided at increasingly short intervals, which makes us more uncertain," he continued.  

And it comes at a time when JSS is expecting to see an increase in clients. Following the mass exodus from Afghanistan in 2021, JSS resettled about more than 160 refugees this past year with more than 70 being Afghan evacuees. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, Gardner-Mishlove says they’re expecting to help even more refugees next year.  

"So to help us, you know, handle the unpredictability of it, it would be helpful for us to have access to this money," she said. "The best thing to do when you're an agency, especially a small agency, planning services for a large community, is to know what funding you have.”  

Congress voted to pass the Fiscal Year 2022 (FY22) budget in March 2022. And with the midterm election happening this November, there is the potential that one or both chambers of congress could switch party control making a budget vote in December more complicated.  

"This is just another ramification of a broken bridge budget process where you can have the first step approving them be completely independent from from actually funding them the important second step to provide those funds,” Burgat said.