X minus 10: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN WATCH

from Politico Morning Ed for 21 Sept 2015

SHUTDOWN WATCH: Lawmakers have 10 days left to figure out a way to avoid a government shutdown and right now, there's no clear path to keeping the government open come Oct. 1. Republican leaders have been considering using procedural maneuvering to decouple the budget from controversial efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of its funding, but conservatives have balked [ http://politi.co/1Yl7knV] at that idea, calling it a "ruse" that would leave Planned Parenthood unscathed. With few legislating days left - and much of the capital's attention this week focused on the Pope's visit to Washington D.C. - work to keep the government funded is likely to come down to the wire.

• Remember: Federal funds for most of K-12 and higher education are sent well in advance, so don't expect most public schools or colleges to feel the immediate burn of a shutdown if there is one. But a shutdown will likely be devastating in some corners of the education world. Last time around, Head Start programs serving thousands of young children had to close because they didn't get their annual grants. And some schools that rely on Impact Aid, a program that isn't forward-funded, had to take out loans just to keep the lights on.
• The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing government agencies' shutdown plans, an OMB official tells Morning Education. All agencies were supposed to submit updated plans in early August for how they would manage a shutdown, part of a planning exercise that "is not dependent on the current status of appropriations," according to the OMB official.
• See the Education Department's 2013 plan for how officials would manage during a shutdown: http://1.usa.gov/1Jjd2eX