ESSER II Funds
The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) on Friday announced preliminary district-by-district simulations for the second round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds, or ESSER II. Congress passed legislation in December to provide an additional $54.3 billion to the ESSER fund, of which Ohio received $1.99 billion.
Click here to access the preliminary ESSER II allocations, which are based on Ohio’s proportion of Title I-Part A funds received for fiscal year (FY) 2020.
Districts must complete a separate application to access ESSER II funds. Click here to access that application.
There are differences between the first and second rounds of ESSER funds, such as allowable uses of funds and the deadline for expending funds. ODE’s Office of Federal Programs will issue forthcoming guidance to assist districts. In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Education issued a fact sheet outlining the differences between ESSER I funds approved in March 2020 and the recently approved ESSER II funds. Click here to access the fact sheet.
ESSER II funds do not have an equitable services provision for nonpublic schools, so districts are not required to set aside funds for that purpose. Instead, Congress earmarked a portion of its second round of funding to the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) Fund for nonpublic schools. Ohio received $201.2 million in the GEER II funds, $154.9 million of which is earmarked for emergency assistance for nonpublic schools and $46.3 million for K-12 and higher education.
FY21 K-12 Foundation Funding Reductions
Gov. Mike DeWine on Friday signed an executive order partially restoring K-12 payments for districts and formalizing a $390 million state spending cut for FY 2021. Since the beginning of FY 2021, foundation aid payments were made at reduced FY 2020 levels as a result of the FY 2020 cuts ordered in May of 2020. As a result of this new order, K-12 education will see a net $140 million reduction for fiscal year (FY) 2021, as opposed to a $300 million reduction for FY 2020. Districts will experience increased funding levels to occur beginning with their first February payment.
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