PAYMENTS RELATED TO SECTION 8 HOUSING

Mr. NATCHER. Mr. Conte, Ï yield to you.

Mr. CONTE. Mr. Kruger, last year's bill prohibited the Department from requiring school districts to return payments made to them in 1984, 1985 and 1986 on behalf of children living in section 8 public housing, and required you to restore amounts already recovered.

What have you done with respect to that language?

Mr. KRUGER. Since the enactment of the law, we have at this point indicated to school districts that the restoration of these funds will be forthcoming. As you know, the law required that these students still be eligible under the United States Housing Act of 1937, as amended, in that their housing had to be supported from section 8.

For the most part, we have not collected back funds for districts that were disallowed. We did reduce some entitlements. We will restore those. We are now at the point of notifying districts, asking them to indicate to us documentation to show that the properties claimed are eligible under the Housing Act.

Some districts had children in low-rent housing disallowed. They made claims for properties that were not being supported under the Housing Act, but rather under various State authorities. We have to distinguish between those two categories.

Mr. CONTE. I notice you have proposed to delete this language in fiscal year 1989. Do you expect to have dealt with all the 42 affected States in October?

Mr. KRUGER. Yes.

PROPOSED ELIMINATION OF "b" PAYMENTS

Mr. CONTE. Will the elimination of "b" payments require a reduction of services to students at the local level or increase in local funding to make up for the loss in Federal payments?

Mr. CORWIN. Yes, one or the other will probably have to occur, probably an increase at the local level.

STATE-BY-STATE IMPACT OF ELIMINATING "b" PAYMENTS

Mr. CONTE. Will you provide a State-by-State table of the "b" payments that will be lost as a result of this policy?

Mr. CORWIN. At this point, we can provide an estimate.

Mr. CONTE. You can put last year's in. That will pretty much tell you what they are going to be this year. That is if "b" is eliminated.

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EFFECT OF MINIMUM PAYMENT PROPOSAL

Mr. CONTE. What would be the effect of reinstating the $5,000 minimum payment for determining eligible districts for Impact Aid that was in effect during fiscal years 1982 through 1984? In 1982, when the minimum payment was instituted, 1,700 school districts became ineligible.

Provide a State-by-State table showing the effect of this proposal. Mr. CORWIN. We will do that.

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