Kentucky school officials ask to extend federal COVID relief payouts for planned projects
Teachers greet students stepping off their bus at a Louisville public elementary school in 2022. ()
The Kentucky Department of Education has requested a funding extension for projects in 13 public school districts that are in jeopardy if the federal government continues to halt future payments of pandemic relief funds.
In a Friday press release, Kentucky Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher said KDE hopes the U.S. Department of Education approves a deadline extension to use COVID-19 relief funds but the school districts 'should not have to go through this extra step and the uncertainty because these projects had already been approved by USED.'
The projects across the 13 school districts were to receive more than $35.5 million in promised funding from the federal government. The school districts had previously requested the expected money from the U.S. Department of Education. Some had signed contracts or incurred other obligations and must now re-examine their district budgets.
Fletcher previously urged school superintendents to contact their lawmakers in Congress about the sudden stoppage of COVID-19 relief funds to Kentucky schools. School districts previously had until March of 2026 to spend COVID-19 relief funds that had been approved. However, in a March 28 letter, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon told state education departments that the federal government was immediately halting nearly $3 billion in relief fund reimbursements.
McMahon's letter said the federal department would consider extending the pandemic relief funds' liquidation period on an individual project basis. KDE submitted information about the planned projects in a deadline extension request to USED.
'Compounding the problem is that in order to get the extension to spend this money from USED, school districts and KDE have signed contracts that obligated how the money would be spent,' Fletcher said. 'Those contracts still exist, and some hard decisions have to be made about how to pay for these projects if USED does not honor its previous commitments.'
The school districts identified by KDE in the extension request are Boone County, Carter County, Caverna Independent, Christian County, Clinton County, Covington Independent, Knox County, Laurel County, Letcher County, Owsley County, Perry County, Pike County and Trigg County. The districts planned to use their remaining pandemic relief funds for various projects, such as construction of school buildings and ordering new buses.
Letcher County Schools planned to use its remaining more than $3 million in pandemic relief funds to buy 25 school buses to replace ones lost during the July 2022 floods in Eastern Kentucky. The district's superintendent, Denise Yonts, said the district must pay for the buses regardless of what the federal education department decides, according to KDE's press release.
'The board will have to go back to the drawing board on the budget,' Yonts said in the statement. 'Right now, we have to look at the contingency and what other resources we have.'
In addition to the school districts' projects, KDE had $18 million in unspent pandemic relief funds that were initially approved to be used through March 2026. KDE planned to use the money for initiatives like expanding the amount of students for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts program this summer, supporting summer learning for students in 13 school districts and enhancing career and technical education for students with disabilities in four school districts.
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