The end of the federal ESSER extension announced by Trump Secretary of Education McMahon Friday hit the Massachusetts news wires today, largely because the executive branch issued a frankly not very helpful press release, which goes for impact without starting with what the funding actually is.
And now we have news articles and headlines that are only making that worse, so in lieu of banging my head against the train window here, let's try to parse more of this out.
There were three rounds of federal pandemic funding that went out to schools, each of which had deadlines for spending. They were initially intended for things like not laying people off despite insecurity around revenue, for cleaning, for PPD (remember PPD?), for technology. The final round, what we've called ESSER III, which nationally was $122B, was required to have 20% spent on what was termed "learning loss" and had to be "obligated" by September of last year; they had to be liquidated by January. "Obligated" means it had been allocated; it had to be committed to a particularly thing; "liquidated" means it had to actually be spent. Every school district was required to have an ESSER plan, and to post it on their websites.
Many districts across the country saw what we knew all along was one time money, and saw it as an excellent resource for long over due facilities spending. Depending on what you look at, something like a quarter of the final round of spending was committed to facilities.
However, the other thing that you might remember stemming from the pandemic was supply line issues; it took FOREVER to get things. That meant that some of the work above was going to struggle to get done by deadline. Superintendents and state agencies strongly advocated to the federal government that something be done to allow them to finish the work that they had started. As EdWeek puts it:
Equipment and materials were beset with supply chain delays; contractors were hard to book because so many districts wanted their help at the same time; and schools only have a few months during the year when they can do major building renovations without disrupting learning.
ESSER III allowed for capital projects at a time when supply shortages and pandemic-related delays were prevalent. To provide some additional time to use these funds, USED, which cannot extend the 9/30/2024 grant deadline, is using its authority to extend the liquidation period for federal grants
And, let's be real: we still have a heck of a lot of the needs from the pandemic, including mental health services and other supports for students. While spending could not be on salaries of school staff, they could be on contracted services.
Again, this is money that was already LONG allocated to districts and LONG committed to particular projects and programs.
Also, extensions weren't given just because not everything had been spent yet. As, again, the DESE explainer notes:
Importantly, the federal government is not offering a blanket extension of the liquidation period and is requiring a justification for any extension. USED has stated that solely needing more time to spend funds is not a sufficient justification. Expense-by-expense late liquidation requests are subject to both DESE and USED approval, and DESE must apply on the district’s behalf to the USED for late liquidation flexibility.
BOTH the state AND the fed KNEW and APPROVED these extensions.
Thus: this is NOT new money. This is long-committed money. That's also why the numbers you're seeing by district are all over the place: how much was left depended a lot on what your district chose to do with it. (No, Springfield did not get more money than Boston; you can find how much each Massachusetts district was awarded here.)
It is really crucial that this be represented in what we're talking about here, and I am really, really not seeing that covered in Massachusetts.
Importantly, a 14 month extension runs through a year from last month. Districts that received a 14 month extension expected to have another WHOLE YEAR to get work done; they had til next March!
While Massachusetts political leadership has framed this as Massachusetts being under attack--leading immediately to the usual yelps about sanctuary cities, etc, etc--this is in fact a national issue; as K-12 Dive reports:
The Education Department has not confirmed the total amount impacted by its latest move to roll back the approved liquidation extensions. But as of late February, about $4.4 billion of $201.3 billion — or about 2% — remained in unspent funds from the three federal relief allocations under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund approved by Congress.
At the same time, 41 states in addition to Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico previously received extensions from the Education Department, giving them 14 extra months to spend ESSER funds awarded through the American Rescue Plan.
That's not only blue states, all.
Part of what also makes this everyone's problem, regardless of if your district is on a list or not, is how federal funding is gets to districts.
What that means, of course, is that right now it is the states on the hook for the funding, as it is actually their drawdown that has been halted.
As Ellka Yost of ASBO notes in Chalkbeat, districts with contracts (I'd add: unless they somehow have a clause for this) are still on the hook for the obligated money, which could mean cuts elsewhere. Which fiscal year would depend on what the contracts are for and say.
At this time, Massachusetts is telling districts:
While recent federal notifications are under review, the state of Massachusetts will continue to operate normally on a reimbursement basis with respect to these funds.
Districts thus once they have expended funds can turn to the state for reimbursement for the already approved funds. That's great. Is the plan to cover it all?
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On a Worcester note: I know the state says that there's $1.4M. I am wondering if the state's reporting has lagged a bit on what has been drawn down.
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