Recently, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) from around the country meet for a two-day conference in Washington, D.C. It was the first public appearance for new CDFI Fund Director Jodie Harris, who replaced Annie Donovan when she stepped down in early January. In addition to Harris’s keynote address, there was also a CDFI Fund panel comprised of the new deputy director for policy and programs as well as staff from certification, compliance monitoring and evaluation, financial strategies and research, the grant-based programs and bond guarantee program offices.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released 2019 population figures in Notice 2019-19, indicating the 2019 low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) ceiling and tax-exempt private activity bond (PAB) cap for all states will increase. From 2018-2019, the U.S. population increased by 1,448,256 people to 327,167,434 in total, representing a 0.4 percent gain.  U.S. territories lost more than 140,000 people, a 3.8 percent decrease.

The Trump administration today released its $4.7 trillion fiscal year (FY) 2020 budget request, which includes $750 billion in defense spending including overseas contingency operations and other adjustments and $567 billion for nondefense spending including adjustments.  The proposed base nondefense discretionary spending cap is $543 billion, a cut of $54 billion from FY 2019 spending cap.

On Feb. 14, Congress passed H.J. Res. 31, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019 including fiscal year (FY) 2019 funding for Homeland Security, the Agriculture; Commerce, Justice, and Science; Financial Services and General Government, Interior and Environment; State and Foreign Operations; and Transportation-HUD (THUD) annual spending bills, averting another partial federal government shutdown that would have begun after the temporary stop-gap funding bill, the continuing resolution was scheduled to expire on Feb. 15.