Some district-by-district estimates of stimulus $$$ now available
Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 6:52 am by Robert Lowry
The U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee has made available district-by-district estimates of some of the funds in the federal stimulus bill passed by Congresss on Friday.
Estimates are available for Title I and IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). The sums are two year totals. Bill language provides that half the funds will not be available until July 1, 2010.
These are preliminary estimates, not official allocations.
We will be seeking clarifications of maintenance of effort requirements and other restrictions on how the money may be used.
The stimulus bill will provide other funds to New York schools. Potentially the most helpful will be the “state stabilization fund.” Its purpose is to enable states to avoid or minimize cuts to education, higher education and other services.
On Saturday, Governor David Paterson issued a news release outlining New York’s shares of stimulus funds. His office estimates that the state will receive $2.5 billion from the stabilization fund over the next two years for education and higher education. Again, half the funds will not be available until July 2010.
District alllocations of stabilization funds will not be available for awhile. The federal law will authorize and direct state governors to allocate funds between education and higher education, with first priority given to averting cuts and funding previously enacted formula increases.
To give a sense of magnitude, the stabilization fund will apparently give New York State roughly $1.25 billion for education and higher education to be used over the next year. The statewide cut imposed by the proposed School Aid Deficit Reduction Assessment would be $1.1 billion and districts lose would $1.3 billion from the proposed freeze on Foundation Aid.
The stimulus bill provides additional funds for education and for general state budget relief. These are described in the Governor’s news release.
President Obama plans to sign the bill on Tuesday.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 6:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags:
February 19th, 2009 at 9:10 am
I would still be interested to know of any direction from the State on how, if at all, school districts might restructure their Accrued Liability Reserves and possibly use those funds to offset the Deficit Reduction cuts. Overfunded EBALRs were cited as a rationale to support State aid reductions to schools, yet there remain legal restrictions on how that money may be spent.
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:44 am
There seems to be some sympathy within the Capitol for allowing districts to use excess EBALR reserves to avert cuts.
At the School Boards Association State Issues Conference this morning, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said that there are some issues with the language that the Governor proposed that need to be addressed. But the Comptroller himself supports the idea.
It is possible that the infusion of federal stimulus funds might dissipate attention to this issue — federal stabilization funds are also intended to help schools avert cuts.
Three-quarters of the districts studied in depth had set-aside funds in the EBALR account to begin saving for retiree health insurance costs, as directed by GASB (Governmental Accounting Standards Board) statement 45. But current state law does not allow the use of the EBALR for that purpose, nor does it provide any legal mechanism to enable schools and local governments to set-aside funds for GASB 45 liabilities.
I would be very surprised to see legislation passed as part of the budget to allow districts to use excess EBALR funds for GASB 45 liabilities.
The Comptroller himself has proposed legislation to give schools and municipalities a way to save for GASB 45. But it is a a big, complex issue that is unlikely to be tackled while the Legislature is wrestling with the big, complex issue of balancing the state budget.
We will continue to support the Comptroller’s legislation.
As we explained in testimony to the Assembly Ways and Means Committee in December, districts in some cases acted in good faith based upon bad advice from accountants, or vague guidance from the State Education Department. We concluded that the districts’ actions may not have been legally permissible, but were fiscally responsible.