[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 14 (Thursday, February 1, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E128-E129]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  AMERICORPS: INVESTMENTS WORTH MAKING IN OUR CHILDREN AND COMMUNITIES

                                 ______


                          HON. BRUCE F. VENTO

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, January 31, 1996

  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of a valuable 
initiative that is an investment in both our Nation's communities and 
the citizens who live in them, the AmeriCorps Program. AmeriCorps 
participants earn money for their education by giving their time to 
efforts that improve communities and help people in need. The goal of 
the AmeriCorps Program is to support communities' efforts to provide 
for the human, educational, environmental, and public safety needs in 
their area. AmeriCorps initiatives serve to strengthen communities, 
increase civic responsibility, and expand opportunities for our 
Nation's citizens in need. These goals mean the AmeriCorps Program 
benefits our Nation on two fronts. It expands the knowledge and skill 
of our Nation's next generation of workers while simultaneously 
benefiting community organizations that are struggling to deliver 
essential assistance to our most vulnerable citizens, a struggle that 
will only increase in future years as budgets tighten and these 
organizations are asked to take a more prominent role in the delivery 
of such assistance.
  When discussing AmeriCorps, some of my colleagues have referred to a 
General Accounting Office [GAO] study that shows higher costs per 
participant in the AmeriCorps Program than first calculated. The study 
states that the average cost per AmeriCorps member is $26,654. The 
study, however, neglects to calculate the benefits, economic or social, 
that the program provides. In fact, the very objective of this GAO 
study was solely to calculate the per participant cost figure, not to 
determine whether the AmeriCorps Program provides higher benefits than 
those costs or whether the program has been effective in reaching its 
goals. The GAO analysis, therefore, is a one dimensional study because 
major value is added by AmeriCorps participants that is not considered.

  The University of Minnesota recently completed a study of the 
benefits of the AmeriCorps Program in Minnesota and how those benefits 
compare with program costs. The study noted a number of economic and 
social benefits that the GAO study ignores, concluding that AmeriCorps 
initiatives benefit communities far more than they cost. One example is 
an AmeriCorps project in Minneapolis 

[[Page E129]]
where nine AmeriCorps youths, some having a prior brush with the law, 
renovated four homes. The resulting benefits to the city include 
property appreciation, increased tax payments, decreased cost to the 
justice system, and the benefit of having the participating youth learn 
valuable skills and a strong work ethic. The University of Minnesota 
study concludes that the community received a benefit of $3.90 per 
every dollar put into the project; that is nearly a 4 to 1 benefit 
ratio.
  In West St. Paul, 14 dedicated AmeriCorps members coached and tutored 
800 students, contributing to a 30-percent drop in theft and vandalism 
in the area. This drop in crime saved taxpayers $160,000 in law 
enforcement and property costs, and helped earn this program a $2.94 
benefit to each dollar of cost. In addition to the direct economic 
benefits measured by the study, this project helped to educate hundreds 
of students who will benefit from that education long after their 
participation in the project is finished. AmeriCorps members in 
Minnesota also ran a program to help high school drop-outs gain their 
diplomas. Forty young people earned their diploma from this effort. The 
community, however, gained much more in the form of increased income 
tax revenue resulting from these new graduates' higher expected incomes 
and, more importantly, it gained a more educated population which is 
more likely to see the value of voluntarism and give back to their 
community in later years.

  AmeriCorps is working for our communities and youth in Minnesota and, 
I expect, throughout the Nation. In Minnesota, the AmeriCorps Program 
has indeed been effective in reaching its goals and has proven to be an 
efficient use of public funds. Minnesota members of AmeriCorps work 
with organizations such as the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Salvation 
Army, the YMCA, Habitat for Humanity, and the National Multiple 
Sclerosis Society as well as with public entities like Minneapolis 
Public Schools and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Their 
activities include tutoring and mentoring young students, reducing 
adult illiteracy, rehabilitating and constructing low-income housing, 
restoring deteriorating parks and green spaces, aiding elderly citizens 
with independent living, and providing outreach services to victims of 
domestic violence, to name only a fraction of their past and ongoing 
efforts. These are civic endeavors that make a real difference in 
peoples' lives in our State, and the AmeriCorps members that are 
achieving these successes are young people who, because of AmeriCorps, 
will gain the opportunity to go to college or acquire other types of 
training so that they can build better lives for themselves and their 
families.
  A recent Gallup Poll found that 94 percent of Americans agree that 
national service initiatives like AmeriCorps are important efforts for 
the Federal Government to organize and maintain. Furthermore, 75 
percent of Americans object to reducing or eliminating the program. 
Nonetheless, the Republican majority has, ironically, targeted national 
service initiatives such as AmeriCorps for elimination while citing a 
study that only analyzes costs and is blind to the benefits of the 
program, therefore, concluding erroneously that our Nation cannot 
afford such an effort.
  Proposed reductions in funding for education, welfare, and other 
programs that help our children and disadvantaged families make the 
work of AmeriCorps even more essential. The AmeriCorps Program is a 
double investment in the future of this Nation. The program not only 
gives struggling social service organizations a helping hand assisting 
our most vulnerable children, adults and elderly citizens, it helps 
AmeriCorps participants become relevant, productive, successful members 
of their communities and teaches all participants the value and 
importance of giving back to the communities in which they live. The 
AmeriCorps Program is a good investment in our Nation, and it is 
working. Let us keep AmeriCorps in place to serve our youth and our 
communities.

                          ____________________