The Wayland Union School District will not receive a $66,315 federal grant originally promised for next March because of funding cutbacks generated by the new presidential administration.
Michigan State Supt. Michael Rice said there were 27 districts that had qualified for more than $40 million pre-approved by the federal Department of Education and they had received extensions to those deadlines.
Rice said the directive that the deadline was being moved, but wasn’t received until after the new March 28 deadline had passed. The projects, which were still being worked on by the districts to get reimbursements, included heating, ventilation, air conditioning systems, boilers and windows.
“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. “Instead, Secretary (Linda) McMahon and the Trump Administration abruptly withdrew approval.”
He said Congressman Tim Walburg (R-Tipton), who chairs the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee, was advocating that those federal commitments be honored.
Rice said, “A change in administration should not void previous commitments. Without the promised March 2026 date for federal reimbursement requests, districts may be forced to reduce instructional expenditures for students, diminish savings, or both to honor these contracts.”
Leslie Wagner, Wayland Union Schools assistant Supt. for Finance and Operations, said this afternoon, “We would like to clarify that the $66,135 in grant funds was intended for our summer program and credit recovery opportunities for the 2023-2024 school year. The request for these funds was submitted in April 2024, which does not impact the current 2024-2025 school year. Additionally, these funds, issued under the ESSER 23b grant, would have been used to offset an expense that Wayland Union Schools already incurs.”
Were those grants supposed to be spent years ago ? There were special rules to use the grants and what they could be used for ? If we have already put down payments for things being done you should be able to pay the rest ?? Who is in charge of the grant money and making sure it was spent by the deadline ? Wondering how that takes away from the kids when there were special rules on what that money could be spent on ? Is per pupil funding something that was eligible ?