Training Secretary Linda McMahon on Friday informed states that their time to spend COVID reduction cash had all of a sudden come to an finish—canceling extensions the division had beforehand granted to states to permit colleges extra time to spend the cash on beforehand deliberate tasks and companies.
McMahon alerted state training chiefs in a letter dated Friday that the deadline to spend all remaining funds was that very same day at 5 p.m. EST.
She mentioned the extra time “was not justified” and that states and college districts “have had ample time to liquidate obligations.”
As a result of the division can rethink its choices, McMahon wrote within the letter obtained by Training Week, “you could possibly not depend on the Division adhering to its authentic resolution.”
“By failing to satisfy the clear deadline within the regulation, you ran the chance that the Division would deny your extension request,” McMahon mentioned. “Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, that are actually taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended will not be in keeping with the Division’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile train of its discretion.”
The choice primarily impacts funds colleges have budgeted—however not but spent—from the final spherical of COVID reduction funding of about $130 billion that Congress permitted in March 2021 as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act.
Colleges had till Sept. 30, 2024, to commit the {dollars} to specific bills. States and colleges had been to spend the funds by Jan. 30, 2025, however some states requested extensions on behalf of districts that typically allowed colleges as much as one other 14 months to complete spending the cash.
Districts primarily sought extensions so they might end paying down contracts—like for tutoring companies, building tasks, and psychological well being helps—that they signed throughout the grant interval.
The letter got here as a minimum of seven states have reported in latest weeks that the federal authorities has delayed reimbursing them from their swimming pools of remaining COVID reduction funds. The Training Division over the previous two months has each modified the reimbursement methodology for remaining COVID reduction funds and lower most staffers from the workplace that labored with states on these funds.
McMahon mentioned in her letter to state colleges chiefs that it could now think about extensions “on a person project-specific foundation.” It requested states to submit an announcement explaining why an extension is “essential to mitigate the results of COVID on American college students’ training” and “why the Division ought to train its discretion to grant your request.”
Carissa Moffat Miller, the chief govt officer for the Council of Chief State Faculty Officers which represents the pursuits of state training chiefs nationally, mentioned in an announcement that she was “extremely involved” by the division’s letter.
“States and districts have already dedicated or spent these funds to assist college students recuperate from the results of the pandemic and have been promised reimbursement,” she mentioned. “At the moment’s motion creates new obstacles and can have a destructive affect for college students throughout the nation. We urge the Division to revive the beforehand agreed upon liquidation interval so companies can proceed for college students.”
The pandemic reduction funds, awarded in three rounds in 2020 and 2021 and totaling roughly $200 billion, had been meant to assist colleges cowl the pandemic-related prices of shifting to on-line instruction, reopening faculty buildings, then serving to college students recuperate from studying loss. Colleges may additionally spend the funds on a variety of different bills, from building and renovations to psychological well being companies.
The final of these three rounds of funds, which was the biggest, was former President Joe Biden’s most vital mark on training throughout his presidency.
