Some U.S. schools are facing an immediate funding threat due to the government shutdown, while others are nervously eyeing their cash reserves and wondering how long the closure will last.
Schools at military facilities or on Tribal land can receive a significant portion of their budget from Impact Aid, which was immediately cut off when the federal government shut down. Some have at least temporary funds to hold them over, but others say they won’t be able to stay open for long.
Katie Law, principal at Arapaho Charter High School on a Native American reservation in Wyoming, said Impact Aid makes up between a quarter and a third of her school’s budget. And much of the rainy day fund the school had saved up before this shutdown was spent on a new track and field facility last year.
“It’s been great, but it took a lot out of our reserves. And so, going into this shutdown when our reserves are minimal at best — a year ago or something, we probably would have had to plan differently. We’re using three-quarters of our reserves to try to meet the needs of the kids in other ways. And now headed into the shutdown with a minimal budget is definitely not something that we plan for and not something that we can readily fix,” Law told The Hill
“The ability to hire people is not there. I’m sure we’ll be facing cuts,” she added, emphasizing Arapaho Charter cannot even hire substitute teachers at this point. “A lot of people are scrambling and doing double duties trying to cover multiple areas at the same time. I do the same thing. I go in as a principal and substitute for classes.”
Impact Aid is given to multiple types of schools, particularly those on tax-exempt land such as military bases or Native American reservations or districts that have federal properties within their lines.
The Education Department has said in its shutdown guidance that Title I funding for low-income schools will continue because that money has already been appropriated. But Impact Aid, which is given in multiple installments throughout the year, is not forward-funded, so it cut off immediately.
It is also different than other kinds of federal financial assistance as it can go to any part of a school’s operation. Colloquially, some call the funding “Uncle Sam paying his taxes.”
“The way Impact Aid works is this is the federal government or Uncle Sam’s tax bill to the local community to fund schools. So again, it’s just a replacement of, not replacement in lieu of tax,” said Cherise Imai, executive director of the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools.
The Impact Aid program has not been fully funded since 1969, leaving these schools already partially disadvantaged. Efforts have been made to bridge the gap, but none have succeeded.
“That’s something we’ve been seeking for many years,” Imai said. “It’s always something we’ve been pursuing to get full funding, which means a plus-up every year” due to inflation.
Even if bickering lawmakers can agree to a continuing resolution, only certain parts of Impact Aid would get released. Only a fully funded government will completely restore the aid.
But, given the average length of shutdowns in recent years, some schools aren’t sweating it.
“It would have to be a whole lot longer for us to get nervous about anything,” said Burnie Roper, superintendent of Lackland Independent School District on a military base in San Antonio, Texas.
Roper mentioned the one year, event without a government shutdown, that Impact Aid was so delayed the district “had to go almost the entire school year just living off our savings.”
“We prepare for that because we don’t know when these types of things are going to happen. That doesn’t happen anymore. The current leadership at Impact Aid Office and the workers there, they’re very efficient,” he added. “But right now, they cannot work, period.”
Other schools, such as those with federal properties in their district, receive a smaller amount of Impact Aid but are still looking for answers they won’t get from the federal government until the shutdown ends.
“They will not be responding to email until the government reopens, so that’s a concern. Fiscally, there are still payments that need to be made from the last application year. So those schools will go without those final payments, and that’s a concern, because they probably already have that budget within their 25-26 budget,” said Craig Hutcheson, superintendent of Kittatinny Regional School District in Newton, N.Y.
“So, the longer this goes on, we can survive at the beginning of a school year because we have the revenues from our tax base, but eventually we’re going to need our Impact Aid,” he added.
Source: The Hill
Be First to Comment