Congressional appropriators are one step closer to reaching a comprehensive spending deal for the rest of the fiscal year before a stopgap spending bill expires at the end of the month.

Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees released a four-bill “minibus” of fiscal 2026 spending bills on Tuesday.

Congress is roughly halfway to passing a spending plan for the rest of FY 2026. The current continuing resolution expires on Jan. 30.

The latest “minibus” covers annual appropriations for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, as well as some smaller related agencies.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in a statement that the spending package delivers “results without waste.”

“At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities. It’s time to get it across the finish line,” Cole said.

Here are a few highlights from the spending package:

3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers

The spending deal would give the Federal Aviation Administration a $1.58 billion budget for fiscal 2026, as well as funding to hire 2,500 new air traffic controllers

The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its staffing goals. Many current air traffic controllers are working six days a week, including mandatory overtime.

As part of this budget plan, the FAA would receive $140 million to implement a 3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers, as well as supervisors and managers who oversee air traffic.

The Trump administration approved a 3.8% pay raise for federal law enforcement personnel, which went into effect at the start of January. Air traffic controllers were not on the Office of Personnel Management’s list of positions receiving a higher pay raise.

The spending bill states that the 3.8% pay raise “shall be implemented for all such employees only to the extent that the administrator determines, in his sole discretion, that improvements in workforce scheduling, staffing utilization, or other operational efficiencies are achieved that contribute to addressing workforce shortfalls and enhancing aviation safety.”

If the FAA administrator determines these conditions, the pay raise would retroactively go into effect for the first pay period in January 2026.

Spending cuts for a smaller federal workforce

Republican appropriators applauded overall spending cuts in the spending bill that funds the Transportation Department, HUD and related agencies.

GOP lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee wrote that the spending deal “codified DOGE recommendations to reduce the federal bureaucracy” of Transportation, HUD and related agencies by 29%.

More specifically, GOP lawmakers said the spending package reflects a 24% reduction in HUD staffing achieved partially through layoffs last year.

Lawmakers said a smaller HUD workforce will save $348 million in salaries and related expenses.

Republican appropriators said the spending deal reflects the Transportation Department “right-sizing” its workforce through a 5% staffing reduction, “all without compromising transportation safety.”

President Donald Trump told reporters at a White House press briefing on Monday that his administration “slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll” during his first year in office.

OPM data shows over 300,000 federal employees left government last year. That’s about a net loss of 220,000 employees, when accounting for new hires.

Trump said downsizing the federal workforce was necessary, because “they had 10 people for every job,” and that terminated federal employees have moved on to higher-paying jobs in the private sector.

“I don’t feel badly, because they’re getting private sector jobs, and they’re getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money,” Trump said. “They’re getting factory jobs, they’re getting much better jobs and much higher pay.”

Higher HHS spending, proposed cuts rejected

The spending bill gives the Department of Health and Human Services $116.8 billion in discretionary spending — a $210 million increase in discretionary spending. By contrast, the Trump administration proposed a nearly 20% cut to HHS discretionary spending this year.

The congressional spending deal rejects the administration’s calls for deep cuts within HHS. The administration sought a 50% spending cut for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, the compromise reached by lawmakers essentially keeps CDC funded at current levels, and includes funding increases for some of its pandemic preparedness programs.

The spending package would give $7.4 billion to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) a $65 million increase over current funding levels.

The bigger budget reflects increased spending to address a rise in opioid overdoses, especially from fentanyl, as well as boosts to substance abuse disorder prevention and mental health services.

Lawmakers rejected a 15% cut to SAMHSA funding proposed by the Trump administration. The spending deal also rejects the administration’s plan to reorganize SAMHSA into the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), a new office envisioned by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Democrats on the appropriations committees said the spending deal ensures SAMHSA remains its “own, independent agency to help ensure substance use and mental health remain a priority at HHS” and “includes new guardrails to ensure SAMHSA funds are allocated as intended.”

NPR reported last week that HHS briefly terminated $2 billion in addiction and mental health grants, but quickly walked back those cuts.

Education Department budget remains intact

Lawmakers are largely rejecting the administration’s proposal to dismantle the Education Department, and move many of its functions to other federal agencies.

The spending bill gives the department $79 billion in discretionary spending — a roughly flat budget compared to current spending levels.

The Trump administration proposed cutting the Education Department by $12 billion, or about 15% of its current discretionary budget.

The Education Department has already signed six interagency agreements to transfer some of its programs and employees to HHS and the departments of Labor, Interior and State.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told employees last November that the department is soft-launching plans to reassign its work to other parts of the federal government, before calling on Congress to permanently shutter the agency.

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice President Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement that “Congress will not abolish the Department of Education, and the people’s representatives will have the final say on how taxpayer dollars get spent.”

Budget boost for Social Security

The Social Security Administration would see a higher budget under this spending plan.

Lawmakers propose giving SSA $15 billion for its administrative budget in fiscal 2026 — a $554 million increase compared to current spending levels.

Lawmakers from both parties agreed that the funding will help the agency improve customer service for the public. Democratic appropriators urged SSA to use these increased funds to resume hiring.

SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting last week that the agency is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the agency still faces a hiring freeze.

Labor Dept. federal contractor watchdog spared from elimination

The spending bill provides $13.7 billion in discretionary spending to the Labor Department — a slight increase compared to its current $13.5 billion discretionary budget.

The department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs would receive a $101 million budget, about a 9% cut to current spending levels. OFCCP ensures federal contractors aren’t discriminating against their employees.

OFCCP, however, would remain largely intact, after the Trump administration proposed major staffing cuts. An earlier funding proposal from House Republicans also proposed fully eliminating OFCCP.

The agency sent layoff notices to 90% of its staff, but rescinded those layoffs last August. Instead of being reinstated to their jobs at OFCCP, the agency said impacted employees would be “reassigned to a new position” at the Labor Department.

Small agencies marked for closure stay open

The spending bill also includes funding for small, independent agencies marked for elimination by an executive order last year.

Lawmakers propose giving the Institute of Museum and Library Services a $292 million budget — a $3 million cut compared to current spending levels.  The spending bill also proposes $3 million in funding for the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

President Trump signed an executive order last March, eliminating these agencies and five others “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered a permanent injunction last November, putting the Trump administration’s plans to shutter these small agencies on hold.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement that the funding package “continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump administration.”

“Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding. Where the administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels,” DeLauro said.

The post 3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers, Education Dept cuts rejected: Highlights from final FY 2026 spending bills first appeared on Federal News Network.

© AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

Interview transcript:

 

Terry Gerton Your office has recently published the results of your audit on the homeless screening clinical reminder process in the Veterans Health Administration. Let’s start by having you explain what that process is and how it’s supposed to work, and what difference it makes for veterans who are perhaps experiencing housing instability.

Steve Bracci First, I do want to acknowledge that VA has prioritized ending veteran homelessness. There are several programs to help veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. The homeless screening clinical reminder process really is an outreach effort. During health care visits, the screening tool, which is a series of questions, is used as a proactive way for VA to identify and help veterans who are either homeless or concerned about their housing stability. And this is really important because veterans may be unaware of the programs and assistance VA has to offer, or they might be reluctant to ask for help. So the screening tool prompts clinical staff to ask veterans if they have any housing concerns that they want help with. This then allows the clinician to make a referral to a social worker who can then connect with the veteran to discuss options and provide them with the assistance they need. This is, again, really important because it can have a major impact on veterans’ housing stability and their overall health and wellbeing.

Terry Gerton And VHA has established a target timeframe for that follow-up, right? Will you walk us through that?

Steve Bracci When a veteran says they want help, they are supposed to acknowledge that and act on it within seven days, but the goal is to actually resolve and have a conversation with the veteran within 30 days. But of course they recognize that it’s important to do it as quickly as possible.

Terry Gerton And so I guess the big finding, as you did your audit, was that in cases where the medical centers used both VistA and the Oracle Health System, almost 61% of veterans didn’t receive appropriate follow-up. What exactly is going wrong there?

Steve Bracci First, I want to clarify the 61%. That only refers to the veterans we were able to review at the VistA sites. The issues we saw at the Oracle sites were more focused on the lack of reliable data, which prevented our team and actually prevents VA from being able to view veterans’ cases and make sure that they’re being followed up on. So the 61% does refer to the VistA site. I just wanted to make that clear. But to answer your question about what went wrong, there were two key breakdowns that we saw in the process. First, the staff that screened the veterans, the clinicians, did not always refer veterans to social workers. Facilities have different ways of doing this and the processes varied across the sites we reviewed. For example, some facilities do a formal referral through the electronic health record using the consult process, while others use more informal methods, like sending an instant message to social workers. That’s an example. But we did find instances where these referrals just weren’t made. And as a result, no one reached out to the veterans to provide them with the assistance they needed. So that was the first part. The second part is the staff who received the referrals didn’t always follow their local procedures for conducting outreach with respect to how they tried to reach the veterans or how many attempts they made to reach the veterans. The intent of a follow-up is for social workers to have an actual interaction with the veteran and to have a conversation, identify their needs, and then they can provide the appropriate intervention. But we found instances where there was no interaction at all and it was just a letter was sent, or an email. So there was no way to ensure that the veterans’ needs were actually being met.

Terry Gerton Homeless veterans can be amongst some of the toughest folks to actually contact. They may not have a reliable mailing address. They may have a predictable phone number. What are the contact mechanisms that the referral team is supposed to use to reach them?

Steve Bracci Whatever method possible. They try to reach them using a telephone number. They try email. They try text messages. I think that’s not something we really touched on too much in our report, but it does show the importance of trying multiple times to reach a veteran before closing out that referral.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Steve Bracci. He is a deputy assistant inspector general for the Office of Audits and Evaluations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. So you mentioned the 61% with VistA cases, but you also said with the Oracle Health System, they have unreliable data. I’m interested — it seems like two different IT systems, but I’m presuming they have sort of the same SOPs across the network, regardless of what IT system they’re using. What makes the difference in terms of reliable follow-up reports, or root causes?

Steve Bracci I think it’s just a matter of how reliable that follow-up report is. We found with the VistA sites that the report was accurate as far as identifying the actual veterans who screened positive and wanted help. It was the actual follow-up part of that that was missing, whether or not the veteran had actually been reached and whether or not the follow-up had been completed. So that was the piece that was missing with the VistA sites. With the Oracle sites, we just found that it wasn’t accurate at all. The actual report was somewhat unusable with identifying whether or not veterans had actually screened positive and then any sort of follow-up had been done. So, that was a distinction there.

Terry Gerton So you’ve got really two fundamentally different, systemic problems. Talk us through your recommendations. How do you want VA to tackle this issue?

Steve Bracci That’s a challenge for VA is when you have two systems — anytime you have IT systems and there need to be updates, that is a challenge. I think it’s just a matter of doing what they need to do to make sure that the systems are accurately capturing the data and reporting the veterans who need help so that that follow-up can be taken.

Terry Gerton How did VA respond to these recommendations, and who’s responsible for fixing the problem?

Steve Bracci I do want to acknowledge that VA concurred with our recommendations and they developed a responsive action plan for each one. So that’s important. Carrying out the action plans will require significant effort because not only are we dealing with two different systems, but we’re dealing with many VA medical facilities and each facility can do things a little bit differently. So identifying what works and taking steps to standardize that process across the system will take some effort. So that’s an important piece. Like I said, the recommendation about ensuring reliable reports could require additional coordination because we are dealing with VistA sites and Oracle sites, and it will require significant communication and collaboration across program offices and VA stakeholders to get the reports where they need to be. So ultimately responsible, you know, I mean the VA secretary is ultimately responsible for everything within VA. But you have many different program offices that are relevant in this case, and you have many different VA leaders also.

Terry Gerton Does VA have, say, a task force lead for this project?

Steve Bracci Not that I’m aware of.

Terry Gerton Let’s assume that they figure out how they’re going to orchestrate all of those different pieces that need to respond to this. What do you want veterans to know about how this might change their interaction or their service when they’re screened for homelessness or housing insecurity?

Steve Bracci I want veterans to know that they can expect to see improvements to the process. That’s why the OIG is so important: Our oversight focuses on topics and programs and services that are important to veterans. Our team does a really good job. When we conduct an audit, our team does really good job communicating with the different program offices and with VA leadership throughout the project. So when our report is issued, it doesn’t come as a surprise. So that communication, I think, is really important and it gives VA the opportunity to start making improvements and corrective actions immediately. And we’ve found that that is the case, that they take those meetings and they take our findings and our recommendations seriously. So I want veterans to know that. And, you know, I think VA as part of their response to our report, they have planned corrective actions that should be implemented by August of 2026. So if they follow through and they take action and they complete those plans, then veterans will see improvements to this process.

The post Recent VA audit finds major gaps in homeless screening, prevention first appeared on Federal News Network.

© The Associated Press

Editor’s note: This segment first appeared on Texas Monthly Presents, a television program airing on Texas PBS stations and on PBS.org. It will also be featured in a national PBS special on October 31, 2025. Blake Barrow is the chief executive director of the Rescue Mission of El Paso, the homeless-services organization that runs Hallelujah! BBQ, a unique barbecue joint that doubles as vocational training for residents of the Rescue Mission’s shelter. When the operation grew from a catering service into a restaurant, barbecue editor Daniel Vaughn had to check it out for himself.

The post The Story: This Barbecue Joint Wants to Change How the World Sees the Homeless appeared first on Texas Monthly.