With four months to go before the deadline, schools throughout Oakland County still have millions in federal COVID-19 aid to spend.
And if they don’t, they lose it.
According to the Michigan Department of Education, 27 public school districts in Oakland County have just over $50 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) funds to spend before the September 2024 deadline. As of May 24, the total money remaining for all state districts is $690.2 million.
Unspent money will be returned to the U.S. treasury.
So far, districts have used funds for summer school expansions, staff bonuses, building renovations, tutoring, and mental health programs.
The aid came in three rounds.
In March 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Stability (CARES) Act sent Michigan $390 million.
A second round was approved in December 2020 and provided another $1.7 billion.
In March 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act sent another $3.7 billion to Michigan public schools.
According to a report by Citizens Research Council for Michigan, a non-partisan organization based in Lansing, state schools directly received $5.8 billion or $3,700 per-student across all three rounds of federal funding. That’s equivalent to 40 percent of current annual per-pupil state aid.
Six districts – Birmingham, Clarkston, Clawson, Huron Valley, Novi and Troy have spent the $12.4 million in ESSER III funds they were allocated.
Five districts – Hazel Park, Lake Orion, Madison, Walled Lake and West Bloomfield have 10% or less of their designated funds to spend.
The numbers vary throughout the county for funding to spend. Lake Orion only has $82,640 remaining while Pontiac has $15 million.
Every district must have its 2024-25 school year budgets submitted to the state by June 30. If federal funds are not spent by then, the deadline will pass and districts will lose their funding.
“Essentially the deadline is June 30, since that is when districts have to have their budget submitted to the state for the 2024-25 school year and projects and programs have to be covered by those federal funds,” said Kevin Walters, state supervisor of Grant Coordination and School Support.
MONEY TO SPEND
Among all Oakland County school districts, Pontiac has the most left to spend. They need to spend $15 million of the $39.6 million they were allocated in the final round of federal aid.
During the last round of funding, they budgeted $11 million through the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years for building projects. They also budgeted $6.1 million to address learning loss due COVID-19 restrictions, one of the few requirements of federal funds. The district has also spent $2.98 million for staff retention stipends and $2.68 million for preparedness and response programs.Interim Superintendent Kimberly Leverette said the district has budgeted their remaining funds to a wide array of areas.
“We have used the funds to provide both academic and non-academic interventions, professional development, staff retention, building security, air quality/hvac construction projects, technology services and devices,” said Leverette. “We anticipate full utilization of our awarded allocation.”
Even though Pontiac has been allotted a significant portion of federal funds, Walters said the district is working hard to put it to use.
“They have been working very closely with us in developing those budgets and gone above and beyond to try and allocate their funding,” said Walters. “They have gotten a lot of money for a district that size.”
Like most districts, Pontiac is looking to the future to evaluate what programs and curriculum could be lost now that they have reached what many have called the “COVID cliff,” a loss of funding that will only be partially offset by increased state spending in Michigan.
“We are currently at the end of reviewing and evaluating programs and positions to make decisions either to eliminate or continue them after June 30,” said Leverette. “The continuing programs and positions would be infused either into other allowable grants or into our general funds.”
Leverette said the $62.5 million in federal funding the district has received in the past four years has helped immensely.
“We anticipate that our district will have long term success as these funds have allowed us to increase interventions and construction projects that will substantially help with meeting the needs of our students,” she said.
As a percentage of funds left to spend, Royal Oak is in the top five in the county. They have $528,484 remaining or 50.8% of their allocated funds left to spend. Only Avondale (88.2%), Waterford (62.6%) and Clarenceville (51.5%) have more.
According to district Communications Specialist Amy Murphy, Royal Oak has their money accounted for in their next budget.
“Royal Oak schools has just received final approval,” she said. “We intend to spend all available funds to meet the needs of our staff, families, and students. As we finalize our 2024-25 budget and prioritize programs and initiatives, some of which were paid for by available ESSER III funds, we await the final allocation from the Michigan Department of Education.”
Murphy said Royal Oak has prioritized where they will spend their remaining funds.
“Funds will be used for social and emotional support programs and data analysis tools which will help us continue supporting our students’ overall health and well-being,” she said.
Farmington has $1.19 million to spend and has budgeted funds over the next two school years. They do not anticipate losing any programs once the federal aid ends, but one area will be affected.
“High dosage tutoring will be reduced; however other tutoring will be put into place that will be supported by the district,” said Diane Bauman, director of school and community relations.
High dosage tutoring is basically one-on-one tutoring or tutoring in very small groups at least three times a week, or for about 50 hours over a semester.
Bauman said the $13.4 million the district has used over the past four years has been essential in a wide range of areas.
“We have been able to provide reading and math intervention support at the middle schools, purchased Instructional software to support math and literacy programs, purchased instructional curriculum and textbooks,” she said. “It has also provided mental health/social and emotional learning support for students, purchased Chromebooks to support student learning and provided high dosage tutoring for secondary students.”
Holly has budgeted their remaining $1.6 million for teacher and support staff retention, creation of online curriculum support and assessments, summer school funding at all levels and up to date instructional technology, including advancement of their new Broncho Virtual School and replacement of student Chromebooks.
According to a January 2023 Research Council report, teacher retention will be the most significant area affected by the end of federal assistance.
“To navigate the impending fiscal storm, many school leaders will likely look to trim teachers and other personnel from their ranks because much of the budget growth has been used to swell district staffing,” the report said. “Our initial analysis suggests that districts would have to lose up to 5,100 teachers statewide to get back to the same staffing ratios they had in 2018-19, before the federal aid arrived.”
That is a scenario Holly has prepared for.
“To help retain our outstanding teachers, support staff and other employees, we have planned our budget accordingly so staff will be covered in our current budgets going forward,” said Steven Lenar, Holly area schools assistant superintendent of administrative services. “Holly Area Schools will not need to make any adjustments to our day-to-day activities.”
Waterford will have the final $6.2 million of their $16.3 million total in their budget for the next school year.
“The district is in contact with MDE and they are assured we will meet our goal of spending the funds by the September 30 deadline,” said Waterford spokesperson Sarah Davis. “The district made decisions to spend the funds in each fiscal year since the award rather than spend it all in one year. This allowed staff to roll out new curriculum, programs and devices in a measured and thoughtful approach.”
In their final round of spending, the district focused on new curriculum, student devices, and student learning programs like Dreambox. In addition, they have expanded their summer school, before and after school, and credit recovery programs.
The federal funding helped speed up initiatives over the past few years.
“The ESSER funds allowed the district to implement a one-to-one device program sooner than budgeted,” said Davis. “It has also allowed the district to update curriculum earlier and add many interventions for student achievement, such as expanded summer school and adaptive learning programs like Lexia and Dreambox.”
MONEY WELL SPENT
Of the six districts that have already spent all of their money in the third round of federal funding, Huron Valley had the most at $4.9 million.
Assistant Superintendent John Tavernier said they spent their funds throughout the district.
“This funding supported the increased need for guest teachers in each building to help prevent uninterrupted learning as a result of mandatory quarantines of impacted staff, enhanced summer programming including Summer Academy which was open to all students and now Summer Extension for identified students who demonstrated need for remediation,” said Tavernier. “It also helped fund teacher retention incentives to help maintain a stable and effective teaching staff and a district-wide health coordinator.”
But the loss of funding due to the “COVID cliff” will have an impact on programs in the future.
“Without the funding, the district will most likely need to discontinue the summer program that assists children who experienced learning loss that we have offered for the past few years,” said Taverneir. “The loss of this valuable program could have an impact on the overall education experience for the students who benefitted from the additional learning opportunities it provided.”
He added, “For students who needed extra support or remediation, the summer extension program played a crucial role in helping them catch up academically and bridge learning gaps. Without the funding, the program is at risk but unfortunately the need to offer additional interventions and support will still be necessary.”
Taverneir admitted the federal assistance over the past few years will have a long term impact.
“The ESSER funds provided resources to support continued instruction when staff were directly impacted by the pandemic to prevent learning interruption in our buildings including permanent substitute teachers,” he said. “The funds helped the district to financially support upgrades to technology to make sure there was equity among all students.”
Birmingham spent all of their $1.06 million and directed a portion of it to teacher retention.
“Our effective management of American Rescue Plan/ESSER III funding allowed us to retain our staff throughout and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic,” said April Imperio, assistant superintendent of student learning and inclusion. “By ensuring our students returned to familiar faces and supportive staff, we prioritized their emotional well-being and academic progress. This was made possible by allocating significant funding towards retention bonuses for both instructional and non-instructional staff.”
As with most districts, Birmingham will be forced to sacrifice summer programs due to the end of federal funding.
“This year, due to the end of ESSER funding, we were unable to offer academic summer school for students in grades K-8, which we had successfully provided at no cost for the past three years,” said Imperio. “We have been actively applying for additional grant funding offered by the state. We plan to use this new funding to continue curriculum improvements.”
Imperio said the loss in funding will have an impact in several areas.
“Due to the expiration of ESSER funding, we have had to make several adjustments,” she said. “We reduced staffing, returned to a tuition-based high school summer school, scaled back high-dosage tutoring, and during the school day tutoring.”
But the federal ESSER funds have helped get the district through a trying few years.
“ESSER funding has been instrumental in supporting our district over the past four years. Our student’s academic scores in grades 3-7 have reached and exceeded pre-pandemic performance in English Language Arts/Literacy and Mathematics,” said Imperio. “As a result, the funding has supported our efforts to mitigate learning loss through expanded tutoring services, extended school day programs, and summer learning initiatives.”
Troy spent their $1.9 million in a variety of areas, but staff in the district will be affected.
“We targeted allowable spending where possible including at-risk students, English Language Learners, as well as supporting math and literacy specialists. We were also able to support an increase in counseling and social work support for students across the district,” said Kendra Montante, director of communications and strategic initiatives.
“We will reduce staffing over the next two years through attrition savings.”
Montante said the end of federal funding will have an impact not just in Troy, but throughout the state.
“Initially, we will right-size the district through retirement and attrition, but over time, it is highly unlikely that school districts across Michigan will be able to maintain programming where funding increases by the state have yet to keep pace with inflation,” she said.