Education Week - February 8, 2023 - 11

COVID Relief Funds Dry Up Next Year.
Here's How Districts Can Cope
School systems need
to figure out how they'll
pay for programs and
staff funded with those
federal dollars
By Mark Lieberman
Sept. 30, 2024 feels like a long time away for
most people. But that date, the deadline for
committing federal COVID-19 relief dollars to
specific expenses, is ringing in the ears of many
school district administrators.
Budget planning for the next school year is
underway in most states and districts. It will be
the last school year with the fiscal boost from
the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency
Relief (ESSER) program. The final and
largest batch of the three rounds of federal
relief will expire just as the next school year
begins in fall 2024. The second round of aid expires
even sooner-just eight months from now.
Some districts spent ESSER dollars on onetime
purchases: new technology tools, curriculum
materials, or pandemic mitigation resources
like masks and COVID-19 tests. Others
have focused on filling staffing gaps, extending
the school year, and fast-tracking long-awaited
construction projects.
Either way, districts will have to prepare their
approach for a world without ESSER dollars.
That could mean laying off staff and cutting
programs; asking voters to approve higher taxes
and bigger bonds; or at the very least reworking
budgets to ensure that essential services have a
funding source.
New York City alone will have to find hundreds
of millions of dollars from elsewhere to keep ESSER-funded
programs like literacy screenings,
mental health services, and expanded pre-K options,
according to a report from the nonprofit
Advocates for Children of New York.
Smaller districts could face even more dire
scenarios. In South San Antonio, Texas, a school
board president said ESSER's expiration could
cause the district to run out of money altogether
within a year and a half, according to the TV
news station KSAT.
Julie Williams-Muz, the director of financial
operations for the Bay-Arenac school district in
Bay City, Mich., spoke with Education Week to
offer advice for districts on how to prepare for an
ESSER-less future.
The key, she says, is to start now.
Help the community understand what
you're doing
Some districts have already begun asking taxpayers
to help fill the gaps left by ESSER dollars.
The Wilmot Union High School district in
Wisconsin and the Warren Township schools
in Indiana are among the districts that have put
referenda for tax increases on upcoming ballots,
citing the rising cost of paying for education
and the decline of federal and state aid.
Residents may be bewildered to learn that
their district is eliminating a beloved program
or asking for a substantially larger tax collection.
But they're not following the ins and
outs of ESSER spending timelines or best
practices for grant funding.
Williams-Muz recommends communicating
clearly to community members that federal
rules won't allow ESSER-funded items to
continue after next school year, and reminding
them that the district has been planning for
this eventuality since the funds arrived.
" They definitely want to be talking about
that now to make sure they can either sustain
it with possible savings that they could have
had these last couple years, or what the plan
is to let go of some of those programs, " Williams-Muz
said.
Keep detailed track of who's on the payroll
Putting someone out of work should always
be a last resort when COVID relief funds dry up,
Williams-Muz said. Instead, districts can take a
bird's eye-view of their employees to ensure that
they know from which pot of funds each person's
salary comes and can create plans that minimize
job losses.
A spreadsheet or internal document laying out
staffing should ask questions like:
Is this person's salary grant-funded?
If so, is the grant federal, state, local, or private?
Is it a one-time grant or recurring?
Which positions can be eliminated through
attrition?
Which staffing areas have the biggest holes?
Can staffing holes be filled by qualified
employees in other parts of the district? Can
ESSER-funded employees be shifted to other
vacant positions?
Many school finance software programs have
tools that can create spreadsheets like these. But
Excel works just as well, Williams-Muz said.
Watch out for a deadline extension-but
don't assume one is coming
Changing the spending deadlines for
ESSER altogether would require agreement
from both chambers of Congress-a prospect
"
They definitely want
to be talking about
that now to make
sure they can either
sustain it with
possible savings
that they could have
had these last couple
years, or what the
plan is to let go
of some of those
programs.
JULIE WILLIAMS-MUZ
Director of financial operations
for the Bay-Arenac school district
that appears increasingly unlikely. Federal
officials like U.S. Secretary of Education
Miguel Cardona have said they have little
appetite for granting such flexibility, urging
districts to spend ESSER funds as quickly as
possible.
That doesn't mean flexibility is off the table,
though. The U.S. Department of Education
has agreed to consider waivers for districts
that need more time to spend down funds on
contracts for ongoing construction projects.
But the department hasn't yet detailed the
process for districts to apply for those waivers.
Don't assume the ripple effects from COVID
are over
Districts need to start evaluating whether their
efforts to help students recover academically
and emotionally from the pandemic have been
effective. If so, they should double down. If not,
they need to take new approaches, not just hope
the problem goes away on its own, WilliamsMuz
said.
That kind of intentional monitoring isn't
taking place everywhere. A watchdog report
from Washington state legislators last month
urged the state's education department to
track schools' COVID spending in more detail.
" Without monitoring districts' progress
or measuring spending outcomes, there is
limited information available about whether
districts are achieving their goals or if they are
addressing racial disparities in education, " the
report says.
The pandemic has had a profound effect
on student achievement and mental health.
There's no reason to believe those problems
will fade as federal funds to address them go
away.
" The money is going away, and the learning
loss is still here, " Williams-Muz said.
EDUCATION WEEK | February 8, 2023 | www.edweek.org | 11
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Education Week - February 8, 2023

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