Days after the Department of Education announced it will not pay school districts hundreds of millions of dollars in promised COVID-19 relief funds, Maryland leaders say they may take the budget battle to court. News4’s Walter Morris reports.
There’s an urgent call to action coming from the steps of Congress.
“We have to keep fighting, whether it’s education, whether it’s cuts to government employees,” said Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents Maryland's Fourth District.
Days after the Department of Education announced it won’t pay out hundreds of millions of dollars in COVID-19 relief funds to school districts across the country, Ivey spoke with News4 and said Maryland leaders are keeping all options on the table to secure those federal funds.
“One of the things we’re trying to do is push directly back with the secretary of education,” he said. “The Maryland delegation is working on an effort to do a letter to raise this and tell them to reconsider.”
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Secretary of Education Linda McMahon sent out a letter Friday saying the federal government will not pay school districts the COVID relief funds they had been promised.
Maryland education leaders say that adds up to a budget shortfall of about $418 million.
“These funds have been spent or committed with every expectation of reimbursement,” said Carey Wright, the Maryland state superintendent of schools.
“It’s going to be a loss of teachers, sometimes it’s going to be a loss of materials or specialized teachers as well that could be helpful,” Ivey said.
He called the potential cuts catastrophic for local school districts. For example, Prince George's County Public Schools officials say they could be short tens of millions of dollars in the next fiscal year.
“I think there will be lawsuits that are filed, so we’ll see how it plays out, but the bottom line is this could be devastating to the school system,” Ivey said. “Prince George’s County, but across the state and could also be damaging to teachers and students at a time when they need the money the most.”
Ivey didn’t give a specific timeline on their response to the Department of Education or potential legal action, but he said the issue needs to be addressed as soon as possible.
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