By Trisha Powell Crain
Alabama’s K-12 school officials are in the final leg of a 42-month effort to spend the remainder of $3 billion in federal pandemic relief money, before deadlines pass and leftovers go back to the feds.
AL.com recently reported that as of the first week of August, schools had $500 million left to spend according to state education officials.
That balance is dropping fast, with State Superintendent Eric Mackey telling reporters the amount was around $200 million at the beginning of last week. AL.com is unable to verify that amount at press time. The state’s COVID relief dashboard, which tracks how much districts have spent using the various buckets of federal relief funding, shows the balance as $470 million.
What follows is a breakdown of what is happening and why.
What are the federal programs at play?
Schools have received three rounds of federal pandemic relief aid; that third round of funding, called ESSER III, was authorized through the American Rescue Plan of 2021.
ESSER III refers to $2 billion directed at Alabama’s K-12 schools. It was more than ESSER I ($216 million) and ESSER II ($899 million) combined.
ESSER III funding was the only batch that required school districts and states to write out detailed plans for how they were going to use their money and to make those plans public.
(School districts were also supposed to consult their communities to ask for their recommendations on how best to spend the money, but it’s unclear how many actually did.)
School districts’ plans had to be approved by state education officials. Those plans, created in late 2021, can be seen here. Districts were bound by those plans but could request to make changes, which also had to be approved by state education officials.
AL.com reviewed those plans in 2022 and found districts were mostly planning to use ESSER III money for constructing or renovating school buildings.
Three city school districts, Mountain Brook, Trussville and Vestavia Hills, did not receive an ESSER III allocation because they do not participate in the federal Title I program which provides funding for students in poverty.
The Alabama State Department of Education provided those districts with funding from a different pot of money:
• Mountain Brook – $1.9 million
• Trussville – $1.9 million
• Vestavia Hills – $990,000
How much money could local schools spend?
A heap. A bunch. A gob. No matter how you slice it, it was more money than school districts had ever received from the federal government in such a short period of time.
Of the $2 billion provided for Alabama’s K-12 education, $1.8 billion was sent (metaphorically) directly to school districts, allocated based on a district’s federal Title I allocation, which is tied to poverty.
A simple calculation of total ESSER III funds divided by the number of students enrolled ranged from $425 per student in Madison City where 28% of students are in poverty to $12,385 per student in Barbour County where nearly nine of every 10 students are in poverty.
Statewide, the average was $2,500 per student in ESSER III funding.
While districts had to use at least 20% of that allocation to address student learning loss, the other 80% could be used across many categories (see next question).
How are schools allowed to spend ESSER III money?
The rules for spending ESSER III money were very flexible.
The first two batches, ESSER I and II, were provided for specific purposes at times during the pandemic where schools were trying to get back open and do school safely and had more narrow allowable uses.
For ESSER III funds, among the large list of allowable expenditures were:
• Teacher bonuses,
• Summer camps,
• Interventionists to work with students,
• Facilities – all types, including athletic facilities,
• Air purifying systems and HVAC improvements,
• Personal protective equipment
What have the funds been used for so far?
Detailed reports aren’t available, but school districts are likely discussing how they’ve spent ESSER III funds at their budget hearings – happening now.
A quick examination of a sampling of district monthly financial reports through July showed salaries and benefits accounted for about one third of ESSER III expenditures, and 23% of the total was spent on materials and supplies. The next highest total was capital outlays at 19%.
A different way to look at those expenditures is why those expenditures were made. According to our sample, more than half was spent on instruction and instructional support:
• 35% spent on Instruction,
• 24% spent on instructional support,
• 18% spent on capital outlays,
• 9% spent on operations and maintenance, and
• 6% spent on administrative expenses
Full reports on how Alabama’s school officials spent ESSER III money won’t be available for a while. There is no one main source of information describing national trends, but a survey conducted in summer by the American Association of School Administrators shows district spending was difficult to put into categories because of the differences among school districts’ needs.
Determining the actual impact of how districts spent ESSER III funds is not yet available, either. But researchers from the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, using test scores, found that every $1,000 increase in ESSER III funding led to statistically significant increases in a district’s math scores. Funding has no statistically significant effect on English language arts scores.
Why haven’t school districts spent all of their federal pandemic relief money?
The majority of the $2 billion in ESSER III money has been spent. School districts have spent between 75% and 90% of the total given.
But there was just so much money that, many people say, local schools couldn’t find enough things to spend it on. It was a unique problem to have and one schools are unlikely to see again anytime soon.
We’re still working on figuring out exactly how and how much of the ESSER III money was spent, but according to the state’s dashboard, as of Sept. 4 – with 25 days remaining – seven school districts out of the 141 districts and charter schools that received ESSER III money had spent all of their allocation.
Another 22 districts had spent more than 90% of their funding. Twenty-three school districts had spent less than half of their allocation, though, and many of those districts have high levels of student poverty.
What happens to the money that isn’t spent?
To be clear, federal pandemic relief money exists in theory, not actuality, until a school district or state education agency requests a reimbursement. When the reimbursement is approved, a school district then draws down (think electronic funds transfer) that funding.
If reimbursement is never requested or is denied, that money never leaves the U.S. Treasury.
Why didn’t I hear anything from my school district about how they planned to spend ESSER money?
There was a lot going on when this money was allocated in fall 2021. Schools were trying to reopen and keep enough teachers and staff working.
But school officials were required to hold community meetings (in person or via Zoom) to ask how folks in the community wanted to spend that money.
Did the state or federal government provide guides for spending?
The U.S. Department of Education issued multiple guides, resources and FAQ documents throughout the spending periods to help spur ideas for best ways to spend money to improve student learning and improve school buildings.
Some state departments provided web-based resources (like this one from Massachusetts) to help districts determine what is and isn’t allowable under ESSER III rules.
Professional associations like those for school superintendents and business officials helped where they could. Vendors – those who had something to sell to school districts – have stayed busy, too.
