Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973

(LATEST SUMMARY)

Domestic Volunteer Service Act - =Title I: National Volunteer Anti-Poverty Programs= - Provides for the Volunteers in Service to America (Vista) program of full-time volunteer service, together with appropriate powers and responsibilities designed to assist in the development and coordination of such program. Authorizes the Director to recruit, select, and train persons to serve in the VISTA program.

Authorizes the Director to assign VISTA Volunteers, upon the request of Federal, State, or local agencies or private nonprofit organizations.

Directs the Director, wherever feasible, to assign low-income VISTA volunteers to serve in their home communities in teams with nationally recruited VISTA volunteers having an appropriate specialty which would benefit that community. Requires the Director to terminate the assignment of an individual VISTA volunteer within thirty days of a Governor's request or within a mutually agreeable time frame.

Requires that VISTA Volunteers make a full-time, personal commitment to combating poverty, including, to the extent practicable, a commitment to live among and at the economic levels of the people with whom they are assigned to work, and to remain available for services without regard to regular working hours, at all times during their term of service except for authorized periods of leave.

Authorizes a two-year term of enrollment for VISTA Volunteers. States that no volunteer shall serve for more than five years.

Provides for the establishment of a grievance procedure for VISTA Volunteers in connection with the terms and conditions of their service.

Directs the Director to support volunteers serving under this Act through living allowances, travel allowances, and leave allowances, and through housing, supplies, equipment, subsistence, clothing, health and dental care, transportation, supervision, technical assistance, and any other support which he deems necessary or appropriate for volunteers to carry out their assignments.

Requires that people served by such volunteers shall participate in planning, developing, and implementing of such service.

Requires the Director to take steps to encourage participation of elderly persons as volunteers.

Provides for the University Year for ACTION (UYA) program of full-time volunteer service by students enrolled in institutions of higher education.

Allows students at such cooperating institutions to perform meaningful and constructive volunteer service in connection with the satisfaction of such students' course work.

Authorizes the Director to conduct or make grants or contracts, or both, for special volunteer programs or demonstration programs designed to stimulate and initiate improved methods of providing volunteer services.

=Title II: National Older American Volunteer Programs= - Provides for the making of grants by the Director of ACTION to State agencies to develop a volunteer service program, limiting those volunteers to individuals over 60 years of age.

Authorizes the Director to make grants to or contracts with public and nonprofit private agencies designed for the purpose of providing opportunities for low-income persons aged sixty or over to serve as "foster grandparents" to children receiving care in hospitals, homes for dependent and neglected children, or other establishments providing care for children with special needs.

=Title III: National Volunteer Programs to Assist Small Business and Promote Voluntary Service by Persons with Business Experience= - Directs the Director to establish and conduct, and to recruit, select, and train volunteers for (and to make grants or enter into contracts therefor), volunteer programs, including a Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) and an Active Corps of Executives (ACE) and programs in which SCORE and ACE volunteers assist persons, especially those who are economically disadvantaged, engaged in, or who seek to engage in, small business enterprises.

=Title IV: Administration= and Coordination - Establishes in the executive branch of the Government an agency to be known as the ACTION Agency headed by a Director who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

Provides that no part of any funds appropriated to carry out this Act, or any program administered by the ACTION Agency, shall be used to finance, directly or indirectly, any activity designed to influence the outcome of any election.

States that the Director shall prescribe regulations and shall carry out the provisions of this Act so as to assure that the service of volunteers assigned, referred, or serving pursuant to grants, contracts, or agreements made under this Act is limited to activities which would not otherwise be performed by employed workers and which will not supplant the hiring of or result in the displacement of employed workers, or impair existing contracts for service.

Establishes in the ACTION Agency a National Voluntary Service Advisory Council to be composed of not more than twenty-five members appointed, not later than ninety days after the date of the enactment of this Act, by and serving at the pleasure of the President.

Provides that the Council shall advise the Director with respect to policy matters arising in the administration of this Act and the Peace Corps Act.

Directs the Director to take necessary steps to coordinate volunteer programs authorized under this Act with one another, with community action programs, and with other related Federal, State, and local programs.

Requires the Director to carry out the programs provided for in this Act during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, and the three succeeding fiscal years. States that for each such fiscal year, only such sums may be appropriated as the Congress may authorize by law.

Requires the Director to adopt appropriate administrative measures to assure that the benefits of and services under this Act will be distributed equitably between residents of rural and urban areas.

Prohibits financial assistance for any program under this Act unless the grant, contract, or agreement with respect to such program specifically provides that no person with responsibilities in the operation of such program will discriminate with respect to any such program because of race, creed, belief, color, national origin, sex, age, or political affiliation.

Requires the Director to periodically measure and evaluate the impact of all programs authorized by this Act, their effectiveness in achieving stated goals in general, and in relation to their cost, their impact on related programs, and their structure and mechanisms for delivery of services. Directs that such evaluations shall be conducted by persons not immediately involved in the administration of the program or project evaluated.

=Title V: Authorization of Appropriations= - Authorizes appropriations of $37,600,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, and such sums as may be necessary for each of the fiscal years ending june 30, 1975, and June 30, 1976, for the purpose of carrying out title I of this Act.

Authorizes appropriations of $50,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, and $60,000,000 each for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1975, and for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1976, respectively, to be used for the purpose of carrying out National Older Americans Volunter Programs under this Act.

Authorizes appropriations of $208,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974, and such sums as may be necesssary each for the fiscal years ending June 30, 1975, and June 30, 1976, respectively, for the purpose of carrying out programs under title III of this Act.

Authorizes necessary appropriations for each of the fiscal years ending June 30, 1974, June 30, 1975, and June 30, 1976, respectively, for the administration of this Act as authorized in title IV of such Act.

=Title VI Amendments to other Laws and Repeals= Provides that the personnel, property, records, and unexpended balances of appropriations, allocations, and other funds employed, used, held, available, or to be made available in connection with the functions transferred to the Director of the ACTION Agency by the reorganization plan number 1 of July 1, 1971, are hereby transferred to the ACTION Agency. Provides that all grants, contracts, and other agreements awarded or entered into under the authority of such reorganization plan will be recognized under comparable provisions of this Act so that there is no disruption of ongoing activities for which there is continuing authority.