<p>Well, after much searching on the Internet (why does anything having to do with the government have to be so complicated?), I found some encouraging news. Pres. Bush initially eliminated funding for Byrd Scholarships in his budget recommendation submitted in February for the FY 2008 which begins Oct. 1, 2007. It appears that the House and Senate appropriations committees both have added Byrd Scholarship funding back into their budget bill at about the previous appropriation ($41 million). Of course it’s not a done deal until it gets through both houses and the conference committee and then Pres. Bush signs it, which can take months.</p>
<p>In this case, Byrd recipients should probably thank their lucky stars that the Dems regained control of Congress, since the powerful committee chairs are all chosen from the majority party, and they’re loath to toe the Presidential line. I suspect that if Republicans controlled Congress, the President’s recommendations would have carried much more weight. (Of course, it always helps that Byrd himself is chair of the House Appropriations Committee.)</p>
<p>If you want to wade through numbers, here are the House recommended appropriation figures - look at page 18 for Byrd:</p>
<p><a href=“http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:S8zFJzcq9WsJ:appropriations.house.gov/pdf/08LHDetail_HouseSC_WEB.pdf+house+appropriations+byrd+scholarship+fy+2008&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&ie=UTF-8[/url]”>http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:S8zFJzcq9WsJ:appropriations.house.gov/pdf/08LHDetail_HouseSC_WEB.pdf+house+appropriations+byrd+scholarship+fy+2008&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&ie=UTF-8</a></p>
<p>And here’s a press release from the Senate Appropriations Committee (page 5):</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nafisdc.org/images/Senate%20LHHSAppropriationsSubcommitteeFY2008FundingSummary.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nafisdc.org/images/Senate%20LHHSAppropriationsSubcommitteeFY2008FundingSummary.pdf</a></p>
<p>As far as notification to applicants, I guess that’s up to your state. In Minnesota, the website originally said applicants would be notified by the end of the school year, which I took to mean by the beginning of June. Then that disappeared, to be replaced by a note that said as of April, no appropriation had been made and that applicants would be notified when it was. Now that has disappeared (along with the email address of the state contact) and no mention of notification is up there. Email to the contact went unanswered. Since the appropriation is NEVER made until at least October, I think it’s cowardly for a state to use funding as an excuse not to notify applicants. Better to initially tell them who won and then say funding is contingent on the appropriation.</p>