The States Attorney General’s have sued the Department of Education to return the funds, issued by the Biden administration for much needed improvements!
Don’t let the Trump administration continue to gut Congressional authority. Demand your legislators honor their budgetary responsibilities or lose their jobs!
Don’t cut vital services to fund more Corporate tax cuts. Don’t cut our services to destabilize our dollar. We need stability and affordability.
At the end of March, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent a letter to state school officials across the country declaring that the federal government was abruptly ending pandemic-related relief funding a year early. Without the already-approved funding, many schools will not have the money for literacy and tutoring programs, or to update or repair school buildings.
Many states and school districts received “liquidation extensions” from the Biden administration that allowed them to continue to use the money on approved projects through next spring. But on March 28, McMahon decided that the Biden administration’s extension “was not justified.” McMahon’s letter “amend[ed] the period of liquidation to end on March 28, 2025, at 5:00pm ET,” the same day the letter was sent, giving states and school districts no time to make any adjustments.
In the letter, McMahon wrote that “[e]xtending 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.” The letter includes an option for extension “on an individual project-specific basis.” But to apply for an extension, states must prove “how a particular project’s extension is necessary to mitigate the effects of COVID on American students’ education” and explain “why the Department should exercise its discretion to grant your request.”
According to The 74, McMahon’s decision puts states at risk of “losing close to $3 billion in remaining COVID relief funds.” Some states, including Texas and Pennsylvania, could lose “over $200 million in unspent funds.”
The Trump administration’s decision to claw back pandemic relief funds from schools is part of the administration’s attempt to find savings in the federal budget to offset the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which would “add an estimated $4.6 trillion to the debt over the next decade,” according to The Hill. Trump is also proposing new additional tax cuts, including exempting tipped incomes and Social Security benefits, which would cost between “$150 billion and $250 billion over 10 years” and “$1.5 trillion over a decade,” respectively.
On April 10, 16 Democratic attorneys general and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) sued the Trump administration over access to the approved COVID-related relief funds, stating that the “abrupt halt of hundreds of millions of dollars of promised funding will force cuts to vital services.” The lawsuit argues that the Trump administration is violating federal law by arbitrarily withdrawing the extended access to the funds.