Austin ISD will need to figure out which programs it can maintain after the Trump administration announced at the end of June it was withholding more than $6 billion in federal grants to schools nationwide.
“There is going to be an impact," Superintendent Matias Segura told reporters Tuesday. "Without a doubt, there are things that we will not be able to do moving forward that we currently have been doing.”
Segura said the district, which has an estimated $19.7 million budget deficit this year, expected to get about $9.6 million from the U.S. Department of Education. That money, he said, helps pay for 109 positions that are primarily based at schools. In some cases, those federal dollars cover an entire salary; in other cases, they fund part of a position.
“Now, in a relatively short period of time, we have to go through and make some decisions about what we can support [and] what needs to change,” he said.
"There is going to be an impact. Without a doubt, there are things that we will not be able to do moving forward that we currently have been doing."Superintendent Matias Segura
The money, which Congress had already allocated, is for grants that support after-school programs and professional development for teachers, as well as services for migrant students and English language learners. In Texas, nearly 1 in 4 students is learning English.
Two dozen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to get the money released. Segura said he is not counting on the funds becoming available though.
“I want to be really, really clear, based on what we understand and based on the lay of the land," he said, "we can’t assume these funds will be released anytime soon."
Segura said losing out on this money will have a significant impact, especially on efforts to support students who are learning English. More than 22,000 of the district’s roughly 72,000 students are considered emergent bilingual.
“When you think about the work that’s done, specifically in that area, it’s an effort to support our teachers in our campuses, it’s building lessons, it’s making sure the curriculum is aligned,” he said. “It is ensuring that our program is vibrant, healthy and serving our students.”
Segura said this situation is not unique to Austin ISD.
“This is impacting every school district in the state of Texas,” he said.
According to the Texas Education Agency, the state was set to receive $667 million in federal grants, most of which would go directly to school systems.
The U.S. Department of Education was supposed to distribute the money July 1. But, the day before, the agency told states it was reviewing funding for these grant programs.
“Decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming academic year,” the department said.
The department referred KUT News to the Office of Management and Budget for comment. That agency said there were concerns about how these dollars had previously been spent.
“Initial findings have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda,” an OMB spokesperson said in an email.
Will Davies, the director of policy and research for Breakthrough Central Texas, said the timing is especially harmful because school districts are planning for the new school year.
“This is, regardless of what side of the aisle you might be on, bad for all Texans and Texas students, because the timing alone is going to force districts, both rural and urban and all those in between, to really scramble,” he said.
Lockhart ISD is also facing tough decisions because of the funding freeze. Chief Financial Officer Nicole Weiser said the district was expecting to receive $1 million in federal grants.
Those federal dollars, among other things, help fund an after-school enrichment program that serves nearly 400 elementary and middle school students.
“I, myself, even the CFO, have seen students read better because they went to the afterschool program and got that one-on-one time,” she said. “And to take that away from a few hundred students and not think that there’s going to be an educational impact is just not possible.”
While the Lockhart ISD school board did approve a balanced budget last month, Weiser said a loss of $1 million could send the district into a deficit because it’s a lean operation already.
Similarly, Segura said Austin ISD doesn’t have the ability to make up all of these financial losses given its budget shortfall.
He added that in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision this week to allow the Trump administration to dismantle the Department of Education, Austin ISD has to be realistic about what federal funding is going to look like going forward. He said while federal dollars have long been seen as a stable source of funding, that’s not the case anymore.
“We’re not relying on anybody to come save us," he said. "It needs to be us doing the hard work to make sure that we have a balanced budget with stable funding sources and we’re delivering the highest quality education in Austin."
