Call you Reps & Stand For AmeriCorps!

The most effective way you can help us Stand For AmeriCorps is to c Your Member of Congress. Voicing your support to your member of congress is one of the easiest and most effective ways to demonstrate your concern for the proposed AmeriCorps budget cuts. If you need help determining the members of your congressional delegation, visit www.congress.org. This database will provide you with contact information for your elected officials. Once connected, identify yourself as a constituent and ask to speak to the Legislative Director or the Legislative Assistant in charge of national service. If calling the House, be sure to voice your thanks or displeasure over how your representative voted (votes recorded here). Talking points for your call are noted below.

Talking points for Calling members of Congress:

• (Senate only) I am calling to urge you to vote NO on any proposal to eliminate funding for AmeriCorps or the Corporation for National and Community Service.
• The CR will decimate vital services in our communities when millions of Americans need food, shelter, healthcare, job training and educational support.
• Communities are counting on AmeriCorps members, national service participants and community volunteers to meet the increased demand for services.
• Provide an example of your local impact and what will be lost if your program is eliminated. Example: My organization has 140 AmeriCorps members serving in 10 Boston Public Schools. They are providing targeted and school-wide interventions in literacy, match, attendance and classroom behavior. If Congress eliminates AmeriCorps, nearly 2,000 high-risk 3rd-9th graders will no longer receive this additional support in the classroom.
• The CR will only push unemployment rates up. Unemployment numbers -- particularly for young people, veterans and military spouses, older Americans and people of color-remain alarmingly high.
• For Americans who are struggling to find work, national service programs offer participants the opportunity to earn a subsistence-level stipend, develop skills, and create pathways to future employment. Eliminating programs like AmeriCorps will result in jobs lost for the corps members and the staff who supervise them. Example: If Congress eliminates AmeriCorps, our 140 AmeriCorps members and the staff that supervise them will be out of work.
• The federal investment made in faith based and community organizations through the Corporation for National and Community Service leverages $799 million in matching funds from companies, foundations and other sources. If you defund the national service programs, whole organizations will shut down and most will not be able to reopen again even if funding is restored.

Bad Press For AmeriCorps

Gregory Korte of USA TODAY has written a rather scathing piece about the "pattern" of AmeriCorps fraud going on across the country. In a time where funding for National Service is on the table with the new Congressional session and word that the Segal AmeriCorps Educational Award reform bill has been wiped off the table, this is scary stuff.

You be the judge. Do you think this accurately depicts AmeriCorps?

The top watchdog over AmeriCorps has told Congress that he has found several cases of fraud in the national service program — but that prosecutors won't pursue them.

In some cases, the alleged fraud involves the misuse of more than $900,000. The acting inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service also says there's a "pattern" of volunteer fraud — grant recipients misusing their time, often for personal gain.

Investigators "continue to face challenges in having our investigations accepted" for prosecution, Kenneth Bach said in a December report. Federal prosecutors told him the cases "lack jury appeal" or don't meet a "dollar threshold."

The Justice Department would not discuss individual cases, but spokeswoman Jessica Smith said each case is evaluated on a number of standards, including the weight of the evidence.

"Procurement fraud and theft of government funds are taken very seriously," Smith said.

AmeriCorps is the largest and best-known program run by the $1.1 billion Corporation for National Service, spending $698 million to support 88,530 members who serve in poor communities.

Bach declined to speak to USA TODAY. In an internal newsletter last year, he called a recent spate of cases "serious offenses against volunteers and the public's trust." Such scams cost not only taxpayers and communities, but also take "unfair advantage of the highly motivated volunteers."

Bach's report and agency records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show:

•Annie Burton-Byrd, the program director of the Martin Luther King After-School Program in Baltimore, used five AmeriCorps members to work at her rental management and tree-trimming businesses. Cost to taxpayers: $30,634. She did not return a call seeking comment.

(Read more)