At long last, President Donald Trump has released fuller details of his proposal for fiscal 2026 spending, in the form of a 1,224-page appendix that lays out the fine print of a “skinny budget” released last month.
Youth Services Insider has gone through the details, released last Friday, to update our budget and appropriations chart for readers, which is below. As always, Congress can feel free to stray widely from the president’s ask, and this is certainly not the first budget to propose dramatic changes or program eliminations. But given the influence the president seems to have over Republican legislators, we think it is fair to say the likelihood is greater than usual that they’ll take his substantial changes into account.
Following are a few notes on the proposal …
Disappearing into block grants
Trump would take a whole slew of individual youth-serving programs and fold them into large blocks of consolidated funding that he proposes to create. It’s probably not fair to say these programs are being zeroed out; more like they become an option on a menu in a way where states might spend more or less on them based on state priorities. That seems to be the goal with these roll-ups: let states choose what they want to prioritize.
This is particularly true at two agencies:
-Department of Education, where a proposed $2 billion K-12 Simplified Funding Program would consolidate 18 different programs into one formula grant disbursed to states. Among those programs are McKinney-Vento, which supports educational stability for youth experiencing homelessness ($129 million in 2024) and 21st Century Community Learning ($1.3 billion), which since 1994 has provided funds for youth development programs and other out-of-school time endeavors.
-Department of Labor, where Trump is proposing to roll many of the job training funding streams into the Make America Skilled Again Grant Program, funded at nearly $3 billion. Some existing silos for adults and dislocated workers would be preserved, but youth-related programs, like those funded through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and YouthBuild, would become part of the general pot.
During Trump’s first term, he kick-started an increased investment in apprenticeships that would continue on in Congress under the Biden administration as well; it was about $90 million when Trump entered the fray in 2017, and $285 million in 2024.
While this budget doesn’t include funds for apprenticeships, it basically locks at least a small increase in by requiring that at least 10% of a state’s allocation from Make America Skilled Again be directed to them.
Big items on the chopping block
As the skinny budget indicated, there are some sizable federal programs slated for termination under this budget. Here’s a non-exhaustive list:
Job Corps, $1.6 billion
AmeriCorps, $557 million
Preschool Development Grants, $315 million
Community Services Block Grant, $804 million
TRIO Program, $1.2 billion
The 2026 budget proposal includes some money for a few of these to facilitate their closure as programs.
Administration for a Healthy America
The Administration for Children and Families is the primary conduit of federal funds and policies that impact family support and child welfare within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). There appear to be very few changes proposed there: about a $10 million cut each for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention and Promoting Safe and Stable Families.
But Trump proposes the creation of a new agency, the Administration for a Healthy America, and this new entity would oversee the Maternal and Child Health portfolio, which among other things includes about $600 million annually for home visiting programs. And it would also house a $5.7 billion consolidated mental and behavioral health program, which includes the former children’s mental health funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Downsizing on juvenile justice
The federal funding around juvenile justice and delinquency prevention is already pretty minimal, as compared with expenditures on other parts of the safety net like child welfare and mental health. And this budget would trim it further.
While the formula grants to states tied to compliance with the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act remain at $65 million, the 2024 amount, Trump would slash the mentoring account from $104 million to $43 million. Delinquency prevention funds, called Title V, drops from $55 million to $41 million.
The Byrne Justice Assistance Grants program is not per se a juvenile justice account, but plenty of the money is earmarked for youth-related projects every year. And Trump proposes to bring the total down from $924 million last year to $446 million.
Youth Services Insider was also intrigued to see a proposal of $9 million for “the court-appointed special advocate program,” better known as CASA. That is well below the annual allocation in recent budget rounds ($14 million in 2024), but the fact that it was in here at all was the surprise. Just a few months ago, National CASA, the nonprofit that typically gets the federal funding, had its grant terminated along with hundreds of other recipients for not meeting the department’s new priorities.
“Top-line Department priorities with respect to discretionary grant funding, focus on, among other things, more directly supporting certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children, supporting American victims of trafficking and sexual assault, and promoting coordination of law enforcement efforts at all levels of government,” said an April 22 email from Maureen Henneberg, deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Justice Programs.
It’s hard to figure why CASA would not align with priorities in April, and then get written into next year’s budget ask.