Custom Excerpt Length not working

I have:

<?php the_excerpt(); ?>

on my custom home page. By default it’s set to the 55 words. So I tried using the expert_length filter and it doesn’t seem to be changing the length.

I also wanted to add a “Read More” link and that isn’t working also. Here’s the code I have in my functions.php folder:

<?php
function custom_excerpt_length( $length ) {
    return 35; //Change this number to any integer you like.
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'custom_excerpt_length', 999);

function new_excerpt_more( $more ) {
	return ' <a class="read-more" href="'. get_permalink( get_the_ID() ) . '">Read More</a>';
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more' );
?>

Are there other reasons why this might not be working? Google and the codex haven’t turned up any fixes.