State Superintendent Eric Mackey said Thursday that job losses could result from the loss of federal funds in the near future.

Mackey made the comments after the State Board of Education approved the department’s $6.4 billion Education Trust Fund budget request for K-12 schools for fiscal year 2026, which lawmakers will consider when the Alabama Legislature meets for the 2025 regular session in February. Lawmakers will have the final word on how much money is allocated.

Mackey said the request included a $52 million line item for “Struggling Readers Beyond Grade 3.” The superintendent, who did not give an estimate of jobs affected, told reporters that he thinks the number one use for those funds will be to hire reading interventionists.

“And a lot of it’s actually used, being used as replacement money, because they were hiring reading interventionists with federal funds,” he said. “Federal funds have gone away, and so they now want to keep their interventionists using these funds.”

Federal funds were provided to school districts and education through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021. The funds, known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER), to address needs arising from the pandemic and for ongoing recovery efforts afterward.

Alabama received $3.28 billion in ESSER funds. , 91.55% of the money has been expended. Recipients had until Sept. 30 to commit ESSER funds allocated under ARPA.

Lawmakers

Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, chair of the House education budget committee, said Thursday he could not comment on the budget until he spoke with Mackey about the proposal.

Garrett said that they have talked for years about ESSER funds being temporary.

“So that’s been something that’s not unexpected, and hopefully systems have planned accordingly,” he said.

A message was left with Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, chair of the Senate education budget committee.

Mackey said they have given schools money for assessments and professional development, but there’s a missing piece with the interventionists, who work with students. Certified academic language therapists (CALT) provide intervention for students with written language disorders, including dyslexia,

“There are many of those children who have reading difficulties, but they qualify for special education services, so they have another layer of service,” he said. “But if they don’t qualify for special needs, then they don’t have that extra layer, and that’s where these CALT therapists come in very handy.”

Mackey said he has spoken with several superintendents who have the money to retain their interventionists but will not replace them when they retire. Other superintendents cut all of their interventionist jobs this year, he said.

“So, we’re going to see a little bit of both, I think,” he said. “Over the next three years, what we’re going to see is that they’re going to be fewer employees, basically in the system.”

He said they will regain some number of employees back with the Numeracy Act, which aims to set similar goals for math as the Literacy Act does for reading. The superintendent was hopeful schools would get more money for middle grade reading.

“As time goes they’ll be able to move to other jobs, but there’s just no way for the state to really sustain all the money, all the federal money we’re losing,” he said.

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on and .

More than childcare providers across every county of New York were  of the  of federal dollars that President Joe Biden’s  injected into the industry. Childcare providers reported using the money to cover rent or pay worker wages, sustaining care for about 676,000 kids in the state.

“That helped us keep the doors open,” said Victor Vargas, a former teacher who operates a daycare out of his home in the South Bronx. His daycare, which has eight staff, benefitted from stabilization grants from the federal government as well as a workforce retention grant that the state set up using federal funds.

But the federal money ran out last September, leaving providers struggling with increasingly thin margins between their expenses and what parents can afford or state childcare subsidies will cover. Over the past year, 44 percent of New York childcare providers have raised tuition, and a third have lost staff, according to a new  from The Century Foundation, a liberal think tank, based on surveys and federal data.

New York has increased its own investment in the childcare sector in recent years, largely in the form of  to parents and tax credits to providers, but lawmakers and advocates have called for more funding — especially to increase the wages of the industry’s poorly paid workforce. 

This year, New York childcare workers are seeing a pay cut after the state budget delivered a lower wage boost to the industry than last year.

“The sector is completely flailing right now,” said state Senator Jabari Brisport, who chairs the chamber’s Committee on Children and Families and  that the state fund universal childcare.

Twelve percent of New York childcare workers live below the federal poverty level, compared to 5 percent of all workers in the state. The industry’s median wage is , making for some of the lowest paid workers in the state.

“You expect us to be able to hire staff, keep them here, and have them want to be here — because they’re getting what exactly as a reward? It’s not money,” said Vargas, “because we can’t compete with anyone else. It’s hard for us to be able to stay in the market.”

The industry was already shedding workers when the federal funding cliff hit. According to The Century Foundation’s analysis of federal , employment in New York’s childcare industry fell by 32 percent between 2019 and 2023. (That data excludes preschool teachers and teaching assistants.)

“In other sectors, like retail and food services, wages have gone up,” said Julie Kashen, the director for women’s economic justice at The Century Foundation and the report’s lead author. “Even if they train, and love working with children, people can make more money selling coffee, so they are leaving the childcare sector to do that. That means that eventually programs are going to shut down.”

The Century Foundation had previously warned that the September 2023 funding cutoff could lead 70,000 programs to close across the country. Some congressional Democrats and the White House pushed for a  of childcare funding to stave off the crisis, but it did not garner the votes to pass.

One year after the cutoff, the most scenarios haven’t yet come to pass, the think tank acknowledged in the report published Wednesday. But states are seeing a “downward spiral,” with providers raising prices in order to stay open and struggling to find or retain workers.

Governor Kathy Hochul, who dubs herself the state’s “first mom governor,” has called affordable childcare a key priority. In 2022, she  the state to spend $7 billion on childcare over the four years of her term.

“As a mother forced to leave her job because of the lack of accessible childcare, I am proud of the work we have done with Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins and Speaker Heastie to make this historic investment and the opportunities it will provide for working parents,” Hochul said at the time.

That pledge was “significant and welcome,” said Dede Hill, the director of policy for the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy. Thanks to recent expansions of the program, more than half of children in New York are now eligible for the childcare subsidies — though  actually receive them.

“Unfortunately, there is a real danger that the state’s failure to invest in the workforce is going to threaten the success of all of these other historic investments on the side of childcare assistance,” said Hill. “You can expand eligibility for tens of thousands of families, as the state has done, but that means nothing to a family if they can’t find a spot for their child in a program because there are not enough workers.”

Statewide, the number of slots that childcare providers are approved to offer is  as it was in 2021. Some parts of the state, especially poorer and rural areas, have lost capacity, while others have seen an increase. But many providers are operating below their capacity. In a March 2023 , 1,600 providers reported that they had nearly 30,000 licensed slots they couldn’t fill due to staffing shortages.

In 2023, Hochul and the state legislature agreed to spend $500 million in discretionary federal pandemic relief funds to provide  of up to $3,000 to 110,000 child care workers across the state. This spring, Hochul and lawmakers allocated the unspent remaining portion of those funds for a smaller bonus.

According to the governor’s office, more than 80,000 childcare workers received a combined bonus of more than $5,000 over the past two years. “We’re committed to strengthening child care programs, growing the workforce and continuing to expand access affordable child care for New Yorkers,” the office said in a statement.

Advocates had called on the state to invest its own money in the workforce and set up a $2 billion “Child Care Compensation Fund” in this year’s state budget.

The proposal was modeled after a similar program in Washington, dc, that provided $12,000 supplements to childcare worker salaries. A Cornell University  found that it would cost nearly $800 million to bring childcare workers to a minimum wage of $23.55 an hour — the median entry-level wage for preschool and kindergarten teachers in New York.

Both the Senate and the Assembly budget proposals included a smaller version of the fund in the budget, but Hochul rejected it outright.

“She was completely unwilling to commit new state dollars to fund this proposal. She was solely focused on finding ways to recycle the federal money and leave it at that,” said Brisport.

This story originally appeared in New York Focus, a nonprofit news publication investigating power in New York. Sign up for their

Over the last three years, an influx of pandemic aid has been transformative for many schools.

Some were able to hire social workers or give every child a laptop for the first time. Others fixed up old buildings, tutored struggling students, or revamped summer school programs.

But that era is quickly drawing to a close. And this month marks an important stop on the way toward the end of COVID relief.

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Schools have to say by the end of this month how they plan to spend the last of their $123 billion from the American Rescue Plan, the third and final batch of schools’ COVID aid from the federal government. Then they have until Jan. 28, 2025 to spend the money.

The deadline at the end of September matters a lot: Schools that have any money not earmarked by then could eventually have to return the funds to the federal government. And some states have said they are concerned that schools may be at risk of not meeting that deadline.

Schools can seek an extension to spend their remaining aid until March 2026. But that won’t give them more time to officially decide how to use it — leaving some scrambling to come up with a plan before the deadline in 11 days.

“We have been in contact, in many cases multiple times, with districts and charters to remind them of their responsibility to obligate these funds,” Tom Horne, Arizona’s state superintendent, said in a news release earlier this week. “Most are showing the ability to do this, but a number of them are at great risk of reverting funds.”

Some Arizona school districts or charter schools had yet to commit any of their funds to a specific purpose, Horne said, and many others have earmarked only a fraction of their aid.

Michigan said it expected some federal aid would be returned by schools, but noted it had left less than 1% of the first two aid packages on the table.

“We do anticipate that some school districts and subgrantees will not be able to obligate funds by the end of the month and may revert funds back to the federal government,” Jeremy Meyer, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education, told Chalkbeat in an email.

Still, federal officials told reporters on Thursday they were confident that little if any money was at risk of being returned by schools. Schools across the country have already spent and been reimbursed for 87% of their American Rescue Plan dollars, officials said. Much of the remaining money has been spent, too, but hasn’t yet shown up on spending trackers due to record-keeping lags.

Schools can’t use the aid to pay staff salaries after this month. But they can continue using it to do things like pay tutors to work with their students, finish up a construction project, or contract with a community organization to help with attendance outreach.

Federal officials have said they would look especially favorably on applications to spend the money beyond the usual timeline on , such as intensive tutoring, efforts to boost attendance, and extra instructional time.

Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, and Puerto Rico have already applied for and received spending extensions on behalf of some districts and schools. These extensions cover some $1.1 billion in aid, federal officials said.

Several other states, including Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., told Chalkbeat that they intended to apply for spending extensions in the coming weeks or months.

Nationwide, schools have already spent about $1.5 billion beyond original deadlines after getting extensions on their first two aid packages, federal officials said.

Schools have struggled for a number of reasons to spend down their pandemic aid, though often not for lack of need.

Construction delays held up spending in Mississippi, . Meanwhile, supply-chain issues slowed spending in Tennessee and Illinois.

In Colorado, some schools had trouble filling certain educator positions amidst national shortages, or they planned to hire a company to provide training and were still waiting for that service to come through, Meyer wrote.

In other cases, not as many students or staff showed up to certain activities like summer school or after-school programs as originally anticipated, so they ended up costing less than expected.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

In March 2020, colleges were on the verge of a crisis. Students were dropping out en masse, and California’s public colleges and universities predicted they might lose billions of dollars within the year.

Enter the federal government. In three installments over the following year, Congress gave more than $8 billion to California’s public colleges and universities as part of a national rescue plan. For the California State University system, the stimulus money accounted for roughly a quarter of its annual revenue.

Suddenly, colleges and universities were scrambling to spend the money as quickly as possible, despite limited or inconsistent federal and state guidance. Experts worried , too fast. Campuses failed to take full advantage of the money, according to , and they made decisions that “prioritized students differently.” 

Now, as the final deadline to spend the money approaches this June, the boom is turning to bust. Most schools have exhausted the money, often through major purchases, such as new laptops or tuition waivers for students. But maintaining those programs can be costly, and with the state facing a , colleges say it’s not clear where the money will come from next. 

For students, the boom was especially short-lived. Over three years, California’s colleges used the federal money to give cash to students, typically less than $1,000 each. For many struggling students, it wasn’t enough.

How pandemic relief funds ended up in students’ hands 

After graduating high school in 2020, Jose Castillo enrolled at Merced College, but he didn’t stay long. He needed money.  he dropped out in fall 2020 and started working 12-hour shifts, five days a week, at a food packaging warehouse. As long as he took a few overtime shifts, he could make nearly $2,000 a month.

He eventually quit and re-enrolled at the community college, where he’s studying animal science. Along with his regular financial aid award, about $10,000 a year, his college gave him an additional $2,000 over two semesters as part of the pandemic relief money. “I’m thankful for whatever I get,” he said. 

Castillo lives with his parents and younger brother on a dairy farm, about a half hour from the college. While he isn’t working anymore, his parents work 12-hour shifts at the farm. To help, he drives his brother to school and pays for gas. He also pitches in on groceries. 

Covering family expenses, school fees and textbook costs, the money “just goes away,” he said. “Right away.” 

Of the $8 billion in federal aid, colleges were required to give about half directly to students. The money went to the poorest students, who often spent it on daily necessities, such as housing, food and transportation, according to 

But the criteria varied: the same student could qualify for COVID relief money at one school but not another. At Chico State and UC San Diego, for example, students applied for aid by submitting a simple form that only asked the amount of money they needed. Students at other schools, such as Cal State Long Beach State and Sonoma State, needed to write explanations justifying their need and some were denied, according to the 2021 state audit.

The other half of the $8 billion went to “institutional” needs, which colleges could define broadly, such as equipment or staff training. Compared to other federal relief, such as the Payment Protection Program for business loans, the higher education relief program had low levels of fraud, said Kevin Cook, who helps lead the higher education center at the Public Policy Institute of California. In 2022, the Institute released  on how California’s public colleges and universities used pandemic relief money. 

“It seems like these colleges, when given extra funds, were spending it on areas that were needed,” Cook said. “They didn’t build a new football field. They spent it on things that would make the campus safer or help students stay enrolled.” 

Missing out on millions

Still, the federal relief program was far from perfect. The federal government bypassed the state and issued stimulus money directly to colleges and universities, allowing schools to spend the money quickly but with relatively little oversight.

In their reporting, schools often used vague terms to describe how, exactly, they spent the money they received for institutional use.  reported putting the vast majority of institutional funds towards recuperating “lost revenue” from tuition and dorms when students stopped attending. The university declined to specify what they used that revenue for.

Many community colleges were equally vague, though not all. At Yuba College, an hour north of Sacramento, administrators decided to give students additional cash by using the money designated for institutional needs. Because of low vaccination rates across the county, they also gave out nearly $700,000 worth of Amazon gift cards as incentives for students to get vaccinated. In East San Jose, Evergreen Valley College put most of its institutional needs dollars toward new technology, tuition discounts and waivers for students who had accumulated fines and fees. 

Often these expenses come with ongoing costs that the one-time federal funding can’t cover. At Evergreen Valley College, Vice President of Administrative Services Andrea Alexander has been scaling back how often departments get technology upgrades while searching for other funds to pay for future maintenance. She said the school will likely ask voters for a bond in the next five years to cover the ongoing cost of technology. The bond will also pay for cybersecurity upgrades, which are increasingly necessary as .

Amid the flurry of federal funding, the audit found that many public colleges and universities had neglected to apply for grants they were likely eligible for. Following the audit’s recommendation, the UC system found nearly $74 million in expenses that colleges could bill to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for the president’s office. The same agency approved from the Cal State system, with nearly $20 million in expenses still pending review. 

A spokesperson for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, Paul Feist, said it has not issued any formal guidance to schools about requesting such reimbursements and that it “does not monitor what claims, if any, districts made to FEMA.”

‘I wouldn’t say it lasted long’

On a per-student basis, community colleges received less money than UC or CSU campuses, even though community colleges educate the majority of low-income students in the state. That’s because the federal government initially prioritized giving money to schools with a higher percentage of full-time students and to schools that had more Pell Grant recipients. 

Federal Pell Grants go directly to low-income students. Though many community college students qualify, . Community college students are also more likely to attend part-time, since many work. 

Initially, some community college students didn’t qualify for any aid. In January 2022, Mikala Hutchinson began taking classes at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, north of San Diego. She was taking high school-level classes since she didn’t have a high school degree or equivalent. 

For decades, adult students without a high school degree or equivalent have been left out of the financial aid system, . When the federal government first announced the COVID-19 relief grants, it neglected to specify whether students like Hutchinson were eligible.

Since enrolling, Hutchinson said navigating financial aid has been “a massive headache.” It wasn’t until May 2022, when she was taking college-level classes, that she got any financial aid from MiraCosta College. Over the course of a year, she received just over $2,000 in COVID-relief funds, all of which she put towards child care.

Hutchinson has two young children. That year, she paid more than $20,000 in child care. The money “helped in the beginning for sure,” she said, “ but I wouldn’t say it lasted long.”

This was originally published on CalMatters.

After years of cash windfalls, California schools are bracing for a stretch of austerity that could jeopardize students’ already precarious recovery from the pandemic.

An end to billions of dollars in federal COVID relief funds, declining enrollment, staff raises, hiring binges and stagnant state funding should combine over the next few months to create steep budget shortfalls, with low-income districts affected the most. 

“The fiscal cliff is going to vary,” said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. “The districts that got the most COVID relief dollars, those that have the most low-income students, are going to face the biggest losses.” 

In his , Gov. Gavin Newsom largely spared schools, keeping intact popular initiatives like transitional kindergarten, universal school meals, community schools and after-school programs. He proposed dipping into reserves and delaying some expenses to make up a projected  shortfall.

But the exact numbers are shifting. The Legislative Analyst’s Office predicted that the  than Newsom calculated and cuts will be unavoidable. Newsom will release a revised budget in May, and the Legislature has until June 15 to pass a final budget.

Meanwhile, federal COVID relief funding for schools will end in September. In a series of grants known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, the federal government gave California schools $23.4 billion to pay for everything from air purifiers to after-school tutoring. 

That funding was distributed based on the number of low-income students districts have. Districts with lots of low-income students got more money, which means they’ll lose the most when the funding ends. 

In the beginning of the pandemic, schools tended to spend the money on one-time expenses, like tablets and Wi-Fi hotspots for students attending school remotely. But as schools reopened, they started spending money on ongoing programs intended to help students catch up academically and recover from the mental health hardships of remote learning. That could include tutors, longer school days or summer and after-school programs.

San Bernardino City Unified used $8 million of its $230 million in COVID relief funds to beef up its after-school program. Thanks to the extra funding, the district has been able to offer free after-school activities, tutoring, transportation and mental health support at every school. 

Keeping the ‘sparkle in kids’ eyes’

Mia Cooper, a parent with three children in San Bernardino City Unified, said her childrens’ after-school program has been a life-saver. In fact, it’s the main reason they want to go to school, she said.

They not only benefit from tutoring, but they get to enjoy ballet and acting lessons, field trips to science museums and Disneyland, robotics classes, performances by folklĂłrico dance troupes and other fun activities. 

During the pandemic, one of Cooper’s daughters was withdrawn and depressed, but the after-school program helped her reconnect with friends and fall in love with school again. Keeping the program intact should be a priority, Cooper said.

“The kids were exposed to so many different activities and cultural things,”  she said. “If a program is working for kids and we’re seeing good outcomes, I think it’s something we need to keep. 
 We shouldn’t lose that sparkle in kids’ eyes.”

A budget reckoning for some districts

But some district’s use of COVID relief funds could worsen their budget prospects, Roza said. Districts that invested one-time funds in ongoing expenses, such as new staff, raises and bonuses, might be headed for a reckoning. Nationwide, school staff increased 2% since the pandemic while enrollment decreased 2%, according to Georgetown’s Edunomics Lab.

Salaries for existing teachers have risen, too. Districts in , ,  and  â€“ all of which have declining enrollment – agreed to hefty teacher raises and bonuses in the past year.  

Still, the fiscal outlook is not as dire as it was during the 2008 recession, said Julien Lafortune, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.  has risen dramatically since then, lifting California from the bottom half of states in school funding to . In addition, the state’s shift to  a decade ago has provided more money for students with higher needs, although inequities persist. 

But that doesn’t mean these cuts won’t hurt, Lafortune said, especially for students who were most affected by the pandemic. Low-income, Black and Latino students disproportionately bore the brunt of school closures, , because they were more likely to suffer economically from the pandemic, less likely to have adequate technology at home, and less likely to have a parent available to help them with distance learning.

“It’s not like the Great Recession, but I think the challenges are greater now,” Lafortune said. “A lot of the academic progress we made was erased by the pandemic.” 

Roza worries that arguments over potential cuts in the next year will eclipse concern over learning loss. Potential school closures and teacher layoffs will inevitably elicit loud protests, but school boards should stay focused on services that directly help students, such as math tutoring and literacy, she said.

“Some districts will be focusing on staff retention instead of kids’ needs,” Roza said. 

These decisions may be so divisive that Roza predicts a high rate of turnover among school administrators and board members unwilling to make unpopular decisions. She also expects to see some districts refuse to make sufficient cuts and risk insolvency or state takeover.

Planning pays off in Fresno

Fresno Unified is among the districts facing a double whammy of declining enrollment and a large loss of relief funds. The 70,000-student district received more than $787 million in state and federal relief money, one of the largest allotments in California.

But the district was careful to build reserves, rely on state grants when possible and not overly invest in ongoing staff salaries. Instead, it used most of its money to train teachers in math and literacy, extend the school day and provide a high-quality summer program. It also brought in social workers, restorative justice counselors, attendance specialists and other staff to boost students’ mental health.

The investments have apparently paid off. The number of students meeting California’s math benchmark rose almost 3 percentage points last year, even as the state average remained unchanged. And chronic absenteeism fell significantly, from 51% in 2022 to 35% last year.

Still, the district expects to make some cuts, probably affecting the district office but not schools directly — at least at first, said the district’s chief financial officer, Patrick Jensen.

“It’s like we’re in a boat and we can see a storm coming,” Jensen said. “We’re not going to be dashed against the rocks but we still need to find a safe harbor.”.

San Bernardino City Unified, among California’s lowest-income districts, also received a high  relief funding payout: $230 million for 46,000 students. But the district isn’t anticipating a financial disaster once the funding expires. It plans to shift some of its state block grant money to pay for programs funded with relief money, where necessary, and has been conservative with planning. It’s also closely monitoring the state budget and economic outlook, said Associate Superintendent Terry Comnick.

But there’s still likely to be some cuts, and the district will have to look closely at what programs have been effective and which didn’t live up to expectations. In addition to the after-school program, a “resident guest teacher” program had positive results, Comnick said. The district hired substitute teachers to work one-on-one or in small groups with students who were the furthest behind. The $4.5 million program, which was at every school, resulted in higher test scores among the highest-needs students.

So far, it looks like the district will be able to keep both programs, at least for the next few years, Comnick said.

“People call it a (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) cliff because the money just ends,” Comnick said. “But for us it will hopefully be a gentle slope.”

With federal pandemic relief funds nearing expiration, Hoosier schools still have about $1 billion up for grabs.

The money still to be claimed is part of the more than $2.8 billion made available to Indiana schools through temporary federal funding, .

Approved by Congress in 2020 and 2021, the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) and Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) programs are supposed to help schools districts manage financial hardships and make up for educational disruptions spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Some ESSER funds expired last year. Of that, Indiana schools claimed $203 million, equal to about 99% of their available share, according to state data.

Another round of funds are set to expire this week. Hoosier schools have so far claimed 87% of those ESSER dollars, with around $106 million still remaining. IDOE officials said some applications have already been submitted and are still being processed, while other schools are continuing to apply for funds.

Schools must spend — or commit to spend — whatever other dollars they qualify for by the end of September 2024 — or one year’s time. Any money left unspent is returned to the federal government.

Since 2021, more than $1.8 billion of Indiana’s overall pandemic relief share has been issued out to school districts around the state.

Indiana’s education department manages the lump sum and is in charge of reimbursing K-12 school districts for qualified expenses.

Where money has gone, so far

Under federal requirements, ESSER dollars were distributed based on districts’ most recent Title I allocations — which meant schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families were prioritized. School systems with greater numbers of children from low-income families received more money.

The aid has few restrictions, meaning districts can decide how to use the dollars.

Federal rules indicate that at least 20% of all funds must be earmarked to address student learning loss, however. Additionally, 90% of Indiana’s ESSER allocation must flow directly to school districts. The remaining 10% is reserved for statewide programming.

State officials said much of the district-level spending has so far been on student instruction needs, as well as teacher recruitment and retention efforts.

Muncie Community Schools officials said most of the district’s $38.4-million dollar federal allocation is being spent on major renovations to elementary schools. The district plans to spend about $30 million on those projects and about $5 million on instruction.

To date, the district has another $6.8 million to use.

Earlier this year, Muncie schools nearly a quarter-million dollars in statewide ESSER funding to expand work-based learning opportunities.

Across Fort Wayne Community Schools, on facilities improvements and student instruction has accounted for about $87.5 million of the district’s $158.4 million allotment.

That included renovations to two elementary schools to eliminate open-concept spaces and add new classrooms, in addition to window and HVAC replacements, asbestos- and mercury-containing floor removal and air filtering upgrades in other buildings. The district also used relief dollars to purchase books, online materials and other supplies to aid in learning loss efforts.

Fort Wayne schools can still claim about $40 million after this month.

Detailed for the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation show expenses for virtual learning and stipends for instructional staff. Student support needs — like for nursing and social work staff, and mental health and counseling services — are also being paid for with federal relief dollars. The district has used about $57 million of its $85 million allocation.

The South Bend Community School Corporation received about $94.6 million in ESSER and GEER funds. The district’s prioritizes before- and after-school programs, as well as summer school, along with new curricular materials, updated school technology, stipends for staff and building upgrades. Roughly $45.7 million of the money that can be claimed by South Bend schools is still available, according to IDOE.

Hamilton Southeastern schools, north of Indianapolis, initially surveyed teachers, parents and students to help decide how the one-time money should be spent. Getting students back on track, academically, emerged as a key priority, district officials said.

Much of the district’s $3.3 million in federal funds claimed so far were used to hire extra teachers to target small group tutoring and additional lessons that take place outside regular school hours.

Spending plans still in action

Dozens of school districts are still seeking reimbursement for expenses.

Of those with available funds, Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) still has the most to spend, according to IDOE’s federal aid dashboard. As of Aug. 28 — the latest data made available by the agency — IPS had $89.6 million for reimbursement. The district was allocated $217.3 million overall.

IDOE data suggests that nearly a quarter of IPS’ total allocation — about $50 million — has so far been used for student instruction needs. A indicates priority spending on accelerated learning for language arts and math, as well as efforts to increase in-person attendance and out-of-school tutoring opportunities.

At least 11 Hoosier school districts have used the entire allocations. That includes the Randolph Southern and Tri-County school corporations.

Still, some districts have requested little to no reimbursements.

About 75 districts statewide still had 50% or more of their allocations available at the end of August. Some of those available funds will expire if not expensed by the next Sept. 30 deadline.

Many of those schools have spending plans in place, however, indicating what the remaining funds are earmarked for in the current and coming school years.

Herron Classical Schools in Indianapolis said it for various capital projects, classroom instructional resources, and costs associated with newly-hired staff.

Shoals Community Schools for new Chromebooks, cafeteria supplies and social emotional counseling software.

The Hanover School Corporation also for building improvements, substitute teacher wages, curriculum upgrades, new technology for students and professional development for educators.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Indiana Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Niki Kelly for questions: info@indianacapitalchronicle.com. Follow Indiana Capital Chronicle on and .

Alaska public school teachers short of supplies this year have a new source to turn to for funding, and it’s not the local school budget. Each teacher could receive $650 to $750 from the state in federal pandemic relief money.

Alaska’s Department of Education and Early Development will devote $2 million in federal pandemic relief money to fund teacher requests.

“By helping teachers directly with their classroom needs, DEED is supporting our teachers in our shared mission to provide an excellent education for every student everyday,” said department Acting Commissioner Heidi Teshner in a news release.

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The department will fund the requests through an online tool called DonorsChoose, a crowdfunding site specifically for education. The news comes less than two months after Gov. Mike Dunleavy .

To access the money, the state instructs teachers to create crowdfunding profiles and requests. The Department of Education and Early Development will then fund the project up to $1,000. Teachers may request up to $1,400, but then additional donors would have to cover the difference.

While the department said the state funding per teacher would be up to $1,000, it suggests that teachers only request because of taxes, fees, and a suggested donation to the New York-based non-profit.

“We’re so grateful that the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development is partnering with DonorsChoose, and that the department is using this innovative way to help students start the school year strong,” said DonorsChoose CEO Alix Guerrier in a news release. “This initiative is an investment in the frontline wisdom of Alaska teachers.”

On the instructions webpage, the Department of Education and Early Development said the money is to “reward the sacrifices and extra effort teachers made during the COVID-19 pandemic.” It comes from the department’s nearly $16 million from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2020. The department has until the end of September to commit to spend the less than $50,000 that remains.

Alaska teachers already use DonorsChoose as a way to supplement their finances. According to the , individual donors have funded more than $5 million in projects at more than 350 Alaska schools.

The expiration of these funds in about 14 months could be the biggest jolt to school finances that districts have ever faced. But an analysis by Âé¶čŸ«Æ· has found that the majority of states lack laws to protect districts from a fiscal emergency like this one — a fact that could leave school systems unprepared for the upheaval to come.

“Deficits will creep up quickly and really destabilize a district,” said Marguerite Roza, director of Georgetown University’s Edunomics Lab. “In the end, the students will suffer if districts wait too long to rein in their spending.”

School systems currently face compound pressures. Declining enrollment means less state funding, and they’re paying because of a tight labor market and more for supplies because of inflation. To better withstand the strain, experts like Roza advise districts to estimate their revenues and spending a few years in advance, taking into account enrollment trends, taxes and the potential for an economic downturn.

But only six states have such requirements. Experts also recommend setting aside money for fiscal emergencies, but just 10 states mandate the practice. 

Most states view district budgets as a local matter. Officials say they can offer little more than advice as the education system heads for what Roza calls a “.”

“For these next few years, 
 state monitoring of finances is an absolute must,” she said. Relief funds have “distorted district finances. Many are overcommitting at a time when they should be downsizing.”

She pointed to the San Diego school district as an example. In June, the board approved for teachers to avoid a strike, at a cost of $517 million. But projections show a nearly by the 2024-25 school year.

The end of relief funds could also in some states, further impacting what programs, like tutoring and summer school, districts will be able to sustain. In addition, Congress’s recent deal to prevent the government from hitting a debt ceiling and defaulting on its financial obligations could affect how districts wean themselves off pandemic money. 

between conservative Republicans and the White House wiped out the chance for an increase in federal K-12 spending next year — money that could have cushioned the blow once COVID money dries up. Now the House is proposing a in the education budget.

“If I’m a state budget director, the debt limit deal tells me I’m on my own to try to soften the cliff landing with added revenue,” said Jonathan Travers, managing partner at Education Resource Strategies, a nonprofit that advises districts on financial matters. “I might have been holding out hope for help from Title I, but that seems gone now.” 

Planning for Fiscal Emergencies: Three Maps

‘Grounded in the truth’

Districts have been down this road before.

The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in the wake of the Great Recession, was at the time the federal government’s largest one-time investment in schools, providing districts close to $71 billion in extra funding. When those funds ran out, however, many districts were unprepared: They , imposed and increased .

A from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General examined spending decisions in 22 districts, including the Wichita Public Schools in Kansas. 

Susan Willis, the district’s payroll director at the time, remembers a “pretty ugly” seven-to-eight year period with no raises for teachers. The district eliminated its grants department and several facilities and professional development positions. Enrollment was growing, so leaders “couldn’t be looking into the classroom for reductions,” said Willis, now the district’s chief financial officer.

A decade later, Wichita’s enrollment is , and as pandemic aid expires, leaders are looking to eliminate positions they could have cut earlier, but didn’t — particularly at the elementary level. The challenge, Willis said, is how to offer salaries high enough to compete against suburban districts while continuing to fund that she thinks have back above 80%.

The 2012 report said that a funding cliff doesn’t mean that districts didn’t make good use of temporary funds or that the relief funds weren’t the “right call.” Leaders just need to be “grounded in the truth, no matter how brutal,” Travers said.

Budget reserves

Whether the fiscal cliff turns out to be a gradual slope or a precipitous drop could hinge on how much federal money a district received. A from Education Resource Strategies identified 15 states where the expiration of those funds will hit harder because they received more federal aid and have a lot of districts with high poverty rates. 

Travers said it will be easier to identify which districts “have the potential for a painful landing” later this summer when auditors review districts’ finances from the past year. It’s “critical,” he added, that states keep a close watch on districts where relief funds total more than a quarter of their annual budget. The more money districts received, the harder it could be to reduce spending once the funds disappear. That could include some of the nation’s , including New York City and Houston and those with high-poverty levels like Detroit and Philadelphia.

To prepare for lean years, Ohio, for example, requires districts  to estimate their budgets five years in advance. Washington mandates four years. But in some cases, school finance officials’ desire to plan ahead conflicts with budget timelines.  

“We can’t forecast because we never know what our state aid is going to be every year,” said Susan Young, executive director of the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials. 

The state doesn’t require districts to put aside funds for emergencies. But those that choose to could find themselves brushing up against a state cap that limits reserve funds to 2% of their budget. Young’s organization would like lawmakers to raise that limit, especially as relief funds expire. Some have already made and are asking voters to raise property taxes. 

Reserves can help school systems with a temporary shortfall, but can’t do much for a financially strapped district that has or failed to issue layoff notices in time for the next school year. Like COVID aid, reserves eventually dry up.

“There are no reserves that are going to buy you a whole school year,” said Michael Fine, CEO of California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, which was created by a state law in 1991.

The California law also created an early warning system in which county education agencies must sign off on district budgets and, when a district is headed for insolvency, can wrest authority from a superintendent and school board.

Sixteen states have similar processes, some more extensive than others. , for example, grades districts on whether they pay their bills on time and post financial information. The Kentucky state board monitors any district that adopts a budget with less than 2% of its revenues set aside for reserves. 

In California, are now in serious financial trouble. Ten may not be able to meet their financial obligations in the next couple years, and three, Fine said, “are running out of cash.”

Given the pandemic windfall, he’s surprised any hit that point. But with the state’s , he expects more to find themselves on the list. 

“The news probably only gets worse for 2024-25, not better,” he said.

In southern California’s San Bernardino County, where 33 districts are spread over 20,000 square miles, Thomas Cassida, director of business advisory services, expects the majority of them — 28 — to have a budget deficit in 2024-25 or the year after.

They still have time to scale back. For example, some have spent relief funds to open health centers, but might have to cut positions for the counselors and other mental health professionals hired to run them. 

He’s most worried about districts that were in bad financial shape before the pandemic. When the relief funds are gone, they could find themselves in the same place.

“Every county has at least one district that is a problem child,” he said.

In Ventura County, it was the Ojai Unified School District, where Fine said leaders ignored multiple warnings about the need to cut roughly $3 million. About 30 minutes from the coast, Ojai is known for boutique hotels and wellness retreats. But tensions ran high at a  Feb. 21 school board meeting where Fine showed up unannounced to deliver a sobering message.

“You are beyond financial trouble, and you are in fiscal distress,” he and superintendent. “If you were a private business, you would now be out of business.”

Less than a month later, the board and . 

“Parents were extremely frustrated and upset by the news of the budget deficit,” said Sherrill Knox, an Ojai native and former assistant superintendent who took over as the district’s new chief this month. The crisis, she added, was “nestled in an ongoing, long-term issue of the need to downsize our district.”

While Ojai was an extreme case, Fine said is affecting districts statewide, and smaller school systems can quickly downgrade from financial difficulty to fiscal distress. He largely blames “inadequately trained” school board members. 

“In most cases, it’s stupid governance and leadership that got them into this spot,” he said, “and it will be good governance that gets them out.”

Mapping the vacancies nationally, a recently published and crafted by three education researchers offers the latest, though incomplete, snapshot of reported teacher shortages. 

The data suggest the pandemic has exacerbated shortages in specific teaching areas and some states that have faced persistent and well-documented shortages for years, creating a patchwork of different education realities in the United States that vary from district to district and across state lines. 

Of the nine where vacancy rates are highest, Mississippi faced the highest vacancy rates, with 68 missing teachers per 10,000 students for the 2021-22 school year. In contrast, Utah’s vacancy rate was less than 1 per  10,000 students. The report does not yet compare these rates over time, because of differences in state data reporting and urgency to understand the most up-to-date vacancies.  

The report also identified another critical issue: Currently there are 163,650 “underqualified” educators — about 5% of the force nationally  — teaching without certification or outside of their subject area.  More state-level data is available for this group, showing the number of “underqualified” teachers  in some states exceeds 20,000, which has risen in the last several years.

“There are substantial vacant teacher positions in the United States. And for some states, this is much higher than for other states
. It’s just a question of how severe it is,” said Tuan Nguyen, lead author on the working paper and education researcher at Kansas State University. “The pandemic has just exacerbated the situation that was already starting to build up
just made it worse for some states.”

Nationally, an estimated 36,504 full-time teacher positions are unfilled, with the number potentially as high as 52,800, the report found.  

The vacancy estimates from Nguyen and co-authors Chanh Lam and Paul Bruno are significantly lower than the 300,000 reported by the National Education Association and (the higher estimate includes non-teaching staff such as bus drivers and school counselors). They join a host of academics attempting to make sense of shortages in the absence of , which would put vacancies, which vary school to school and district to district, into context. 

Published with the Annenberg Institute for Education Reform at Brown University, the report raises concerns about teacher education program pipelines; staffing historically hard-to-staff positions in rural areas, STEM and special education; and the lack of accurate data. 

Their work marks the first time vacancy numbers have been documented for all 50 states and Washington, D.C. as reports flow in about districts shifting to , or calling in the and to teach. 

“A lot of the things that they’re doing right now seem to be a little, quick band-aid to stop the bleeding. But it’s not going to solve this long term issue, particularly for states that have persistent shortages like Kansas, Florida and Mississippi,” Nguyen told the 74.

The highest raw numbers of open teaching positions are concentrated in the south and lower Atlantic, where about 22,000 positions are open, triple the picture in midwestern states. Alabama, which had over 3,000 vacancies in 2021-22, sits in stark contrast to Illinois, where 1,703 positions were left unfilled. 

Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi also experienced high raw number of vacancies in the 2021-22 school year, each missing at least 3,000 teachers. 

Nguyen described vacancies and staffing challenges as “ubiquitous,” but constituting a huge range. Beyond the nine states facing highest vacancy rates, another 19 have modest shortages, between 0 and 12 vacant positions per 10,000 students.  Nine others face moderate shortages, missing between 12 and 15 educators comparatively. 13 states did not share complete data and could not be compared, the researchers found.

Estimates are conservative. Not all districts provided vacancy data to their state agency. And while some states include “underqualified” teachers in their definitions of vacancy, Nguyen and coauthors only considered unfilled positions in their final tally, relying on state and federal education data along with news stories. 

Factors driving vacancies

Thousands of open posts does not mean that teachers left the classroom in droves during the pandemic, researchers at Rand, Kansas State University and Brown University told Âé¶čŸ«Æ·. 

Rather, three trends are unfolding simultaneously: teacher preparation programs face declining enrollment; respect for and interest in teaching has plummeted; and most districts beyond pre-pandemic numbers with federal relief aid. 

“It’s only in this year two, and really, in year three [of the pandemic] that we’ve seen an uptick in turnover, but nothing like a mass exodus, the attrition that we were concerned about,” Nguyen said.  “The teacher supply pipeline seems to be stagnating or decreasing over time. Over the last 10 years or so there has been a substantial .”

Concerns about public disrespect, low wages and legislation restricting classroom content may help explain some of the pipeline challenges and high vacancies particularly in southern states, Nguyen hypothesized.

“There’s also been increased attention to what it means to be a teacher
particularly about what teachers can or cannot teach in the state; whether or not social emotional learning is an important issue that we need to teach; how teachers may not teach anything about racism in America,” Nguyen said.

“It’s like, hey, there are these multitude of factors that are overlapping each other,” he said, “and they seem to be concentrated in the South.” 

Others used emergency relief money to retrofit buildings with ventilation systems, add laptop computers for students and pay for online teaching.

But the state still holds more than $1 billion meant to help school districts address pandemic-related issues. 

Since March 2020, Oregon has been allocated $1.7 billion in emergency relief funding from the federal government to get students back in classrooms, and to get them caught up on their education after school closures. 

Now, more than a year later, most of that money remains unspent.

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School districts so far have been reimbursed for about $222 million in emergency relief projects, according to the Oregon Education Department. That means just under 8% of all dollars have made it back to districts.

The bulk of that money has gone to staff, technology and capital projects – getting kids laptops and wifi, upgrading ventilation systems and adding more classrooms to encourage social distancing. 

But emergency purchases also included weight room equipment, bleachers and playgrounds. 

Districts must spend at least $201 million of Oregon’s latest relief money to combat learning loss over the next three years, but data from the Education Department show that less than 1% has been distributed so far for that purpose.

The reasons behind what districts are buying, and when, are complex, but they have broad latitude in using the extra money.

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund

The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund was signed into federal law in ​​March 2020 as school buildings in many states were closing and classes shifted online. 

The first round of money was ready to go out to states immediately for buying personal protective equipment for staff and students who had to remain in school buildings, and to help schools pay for the transition to online learning. That included laptops for students, new online teaching software, network security upgrades and internet hotspots for families that otherwise had no internet access.

It also paid for more teachers, substitute teachers, counselors and support staff. 

The money was awarded from the federal government to the state Education Department, which reimburses districts for their purchases. Purchases over $5,000 must have prior approval from the department.

Oregon’s share of funds in that first round was $121 million. 

Most of the state’s 216 school and education service districts have claimed some portion of the funds and to date, more than $100 million of that first round funding has been spent. 

The second and third rounds of funding came in December 2020 and March 2021. Oregon was allocated $499 million in the second round to spend on getting schools ready to reopen. 

In the third round, the state was allocated $1.1 billion. 

It was additional money for school reopening that came with a new federal mandate – school districts had to spend at least 20% on combating learning losses. Schools have until 2024 to spend the latest round of money.

Little to learning loss so far

Of the $1.1 billion available to Oregon districts in the third round, about $18 million has been distributed so far, according to the state Education Department. That has gone to paying for summer school programs, salaries, payroll costs, retirement costs and technology and supplies. 

Districts are allowed to use the relief funds to pay for new teachers, and boost pay for current employees for taking on additional work during the pandemic and to retain them.

Of the $202 million set aside to help students catch up on their education, about $1.4 million – less than .05% – has been distributed so far, according to the Education Department. 

Cynthia Stinson is senior manager of federal investments and pandemic renewal at the state Education Department. She said timing is the issue with the relatively slow payout for extra learning programs.

She said most schools haven’t had to draw on the emergency funds yet to pay for tutoring, counseling, afterschool and remediation programs. Many only just recently submitted budgets to meet an October deadline set by the federal government, and some are taking a long-range approach with the money, having been given three years to spend it. 

In an email, Marc Siegel, communications director at the Education Department wrote, “It is important to note that the three relief acts came in very short succession.” 

Siegel said many districts are still spending previous rounds of money and added, “We are only a little over three months into the school year.” 

But Oregon schools have not wasted much time getting capital projects funded, some of which include renovating running tracks, getting weight training equipment and upgrading playgrounds.

Stinson said districts have been given flexibility on what they can buy. 

The Education Department doesn’t track every rejection of a district’s , but said it turned down requests for baseball and football scoreboards, some requests for bleachers, the request for a vehicle to use for student outreach and one request for a roof replacement.

“One of the goals is also to emerge stronger post pandemic,” Stinson said of the emergency funds. “As we talk with districts, and understand what it might really mean for a rural or frontier district in Oregon to redo a playground, it’s not only for all of the kids in school, but it’s the only playground in the community, right?”

The Capital Chronicle emailed 150 Oregon school district superintendents seeking information about how they used their latest round of relief dollars. Of those, 30 superintendents or district representatives responded. 

Three wrote that they had been posting reports on their district websites about where their relief dollars were going, six sent spreadsheets detailing projects and a few said they hadn’t claimed any of the latest funding but planned to.

Jeff Clark, Amity School District superintendent, said so far most of his district’s relief dollars have gone to improving learning conditions.

“We have some older buildings with poor ventilation. Supplies, materials and equipment would be next on the list,” he wrote via email. 

Clark said the district is using dollars from the state’s Student Investment Account to help recover lost learning. That’s part of the $1 billion a year Oregon schools get under the Student Success Act that was signed into law in 2019. Several district superintendents said they preferred using that more stable funding instead of short-term federal help to pay for more staff and for programming to combat learning loss.

In the Forest Grove School District, emergency relief dollars are being used for reading and math interventions and tutoring middle schoolers, summer school activities and social and emotional support staff, according to David Warner, district communications director. 

In Hermiston, Superintendent Tricia Mooney said the district wants to use the latest round of relief money to support summer school programs to help get students caught up. 

In North Bend, school officials plan to ask for $3 million to help combat learning loss. In the Siuslaw School District, they are planning to ask for about $691,000 to combat learning loss over the current school year, according to Superintendent Andrew Grzeskowiak. 

Among most of the district leaders who responded, transitions to online learning, staff, payroll and retirement, along with capital expenses and supplies were among the biggest expenses incurred so far.

HVAC and parking lots

In an effort to get schools fully reopened in the fall, the Klamath County School District initiated construction projects with the emergency funds.

The district updated HVAC systems in an elementary school and high school, and added extra classrooms to buildings so there’d be fewer kids in each room. They also added new turf fields to several schools and resurfaced a parking lot. 

Despite being short staffed, like most districts in the state, Superintendent Glen Szymoniak said the short window to use federal relief aid meant he wasn’t going to use it to do temporary hires of teachers and counselors and programs that couldn’t be sustained.

“With money that only lasts a couple years, you do projects. That’s the golden rule right there. You don’t use it to hire people and cut them loose in a few years. It gives you a bad reputation and it’s just a terrible way to treat people,” he said. 

Rather than hiring new people, he used some of the relief money to pay employees to surrender vacation time.

“We’re buying that off at a bit of a higher rate,” he said, “so that we can have them stay in the classroom.”

He also bought lawn mowers and floor cleaners that were faster and more efficient than what he had, allowing grounds staff and janitors more time to complete other sanitation and maintenance work and negating the need to do more hiring. 

“Custodians have floor scrubbers, now there’s time to sanitize. They weren’t sanitizing like this before,” he said. “Principals with tight budgets would buy cheap mowers. Well then, none of the other work gets done. With a high capacity mower [custodians] have more time to do other stuff.”

He said investments like the turf fields and running tracks were important for sustaining school programs that students needed during the pandemic.

“The first turf I applied for was for Chiloquin,” Szymoniak said of the elementary school in his district. Because of drought and the resulting water restrictions, “If there’s not enough runoff and the lake level is a certain height they shut off the irrigation for farmers, ranchers and for us. In Chiloquin, our playgrounds turn to dust,” he said. 

The turf became an essential place for students to play, have for recess and for extracurricular activities. 

Szymoniak said he’s committed to investing more than required into activities that combat learning loss. He said his district is already spending and will continue to spend upwards of 38% of the district’s relief dollars on learning loss. So far, the district has set up after-school tutoring and drama programs, paid for buses to get kids to and from after-school programs and provided teacher training for paraprofessionals who might consider becoming teachers in the district.

For long-term expenses, including staffing and offering more social and emotional support programs, he is using the state-funded Student Investment Account.

“Schools are institutions just like a university. You can’t run a university with a whole lot one year and barely enough the other. They run best when there is stable, consistent funding,” he said.

Accountability for the millions

Jennifer Patterson, an assistant superintendent at the Education Department, said agency officials will continue to talk with school district superintendents about how to make the most of the money.

“We would want to be in conversation with districts to say, what are you noticing about this investment? Is it yielding outcomes that you can see? And to help people do what educators do best, which is to notice a need and be responsive to shifting their investment and strategy if they’re not seeing the kinds of outcomes that they predicted.”

The department itself gets to set aside 10% of all the relief dollars, or roughly $165 million, for emergencies, combating learning losses, helping charter schools, the Oregon School for the Deaf and juvenile corrections programs. 

So far the department $56 million to combat learning losses.

“The arc of the money is long and we’ve talked about going slow to go fast,” Patterson said. “In the sense of, you know, this money doesn’t have to be spent until September 30, 2024. So, really taking a longer view of the investment over time, that will maximize meeting the strengths and needs of local communities and students.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Les Zaitz for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on and .