North Carolina education leaders are asking the federal government to overturn a decision that halts the distribution of $17 million to North Carolina schools for facility improvements.
On Thursday, the State Board of Education voted to issue a joint statement with Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green, urging the Department of Education to uphold the extensions for spending approximately $17 million in COVID-19 pandemic stimulus funds granted by the Biden administration last year.
Since 2020, over $6 billion in pandemic stimulus funds allocated for North Carolina public schools have either been spent or committed before the September 2024 deadline. However, the Biden administration granted some extensions, some of which aimed at covering facility expenses to provide relief during periods of material and labor shortages.
However, Education Secretary Linda McMahon shared in a letter to state school officials last week that the Education Department would not honor the extensions, calling the expanded extension period for the grants “ not justified.”
“By failing to meet the clear deadline in the regulation, you ran the risk that the Department would deny your extension request,” McMahon wrote. “Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion.”
McMahon shared that state officials could reapply for spending extensions on specific projects if they could demonstrate the need for the funds to address the pandemic’s lingering effects on students.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction shared with WRAL News that most of the projects were for facilities, which are required to take place during time periods in which students and faculty are not in the building, such as holiday breaks and summers.
The state officials told McMahon in the letter that their school districts had already signed contracts for the work to occur.
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School leaders in Michigan have been dealing with a similar issue.
Michigan state Superintendent Matthew Rice shared that cuts to school infrastructure projects, more than $40 million of which the Education Department said it was considering, would harm students and staff.
“Walking back a federal commitment to pandemic relief funds to improve the air quality, healthfulness, and safety of schools coming out of the pandemic is unacceptable,” Rice said in a statement.
