Conn. schools to get $1.2B in federal relief
COVID bill going back to U.S. House for vote
WASHINGTON — When the U.S. House passes and President Joe Biden signs the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in the coming days, it will unleash historic levels of federal education dollars to public K-12 schools, universities and child care providers in Connecticut.
Connecticut public schools are expected to receive a massive infusion of about $1.2 billion in federal aid from the package, which the Senate adopted early Saturday. When combined with the education aid included in previous coronavirus legislation, Connecticut’s public schools are collectively getting 3.5 times the amount of federal aid they receive in a typical fiscal year from these emergency relief bills, said Lisa Hammersley, executive director of the School and State Finance Project.
The school aid is on top of billions of dollars Connecticut is set to receive for towns, the state government and bolstered federal programs such as food assistance.
But local school leaders are already worrying that budget moves by the state could mean schools see only part of this money. And they fear they may experience a “fiscal cliff” in education dollars in the future, meaning more hard times down the road.
Education institutions, from child care providers to colleges and universities, have seen their operating costs spike with coronavirus expenses as they purchase personal protective equipment, rearrange classrooms, buy more laptops, and pay for more staff and bus runs. Helping children recover from the negative impacts of remote schooling could strain education budgets for years to come.
When the American Rescue Plan passes — House approval of the latest version is expected soon — the $130 billion allocated for public schools across the nation will mark the largest infusion of education money Congress has ever made through Title I. That money uses a funding formula that based on the number of low-income students in a district, a Democratic aide said.
The money dwarfs emergency education dollars previously allocated by Congress during the pandemic.
The “historic” funding is aimed at supporting emergency school reopening costs and to upgrade public education for the future, said Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-5, a former teacher who sits on the House Education and Labor Committee.
“A lot of this is really trying to back-fill some of the gaps we already knew existed. The good thing about this massive influx of money is if districts are strategic they can try to take care of two things at one time. Fill in some of the short-term needs, but also make sure these are things that are sustainable,” she said. “It really is a result of long-term neglect, if you will.”
Urban schools that serve the most low-income students will receive the most money. Bridgeport and Hartford public school systems are both slated to get about $134 million from the American Rescue Plan, the most of any districts in the state. Waterbury and New Haven Public Schools are expected to receive about $95 million each.
Stamford Public Schools will get roughly $39 million; Norwalk and Danbury, $29 million each; Greenwich, $11 million and Middletown, $9 million. Five very small towns — Andover, Canaan, Colebrook, Eastford and Union — will get no added money for schools under the Title I formula.
About 20 percent of the money will have to be spent by district to address “learning loss,” students who have fallen behind during the pandemic. A small portion of the federal dollars spent will also be aimed at funding summer enrichment, after-school programs and education technology — provisions U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy pushed for.
Education officials are unsure exactly when the money will arrive in their accounts. That will depend on a combination of federal and state actions that could mean schools don’t see much of this money until much later in 2021 or in 2022.
Republican critics of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill say much of the money will be spent in future years, proving, the critic say, that the goal of many Democrats is to change policies on spending, not to stimulate a battered coronavirus economy. The bill passed the Senate on a straight party-line vote.
Exactly how much relief local school districts get could depend on how the state adjusts its own budget to take account for the influx of federal dollars. Connecticut’s state government provides about $2 billion a year for local school systems’ operating costs under an “education cost-sharing” formula.
In interviews, Democrats in Congress emphasized that the federal education dollars are intended to supplement, not supplant, state obligations to fund schools. They included language Hayes authored in the COVID bill saying states must maintain K-12 funding in the same proportion to their overall state budget as in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years — an attempt to block states from back-filling their own education spending with the incoming federal dollars.
Congress, led by Democrats who favor the full, $1.9 trillion relief total, has including giant infusions for state and town governments in the bill. Connecticut will receive about $2.7 billion and cities and towns in the state will receive $1.6 billion.
Education funding has been a part of every coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress so far. The CARES Act, signed into law in March 2020, included $30 billion for schools across the nation — part of which went to K-12 schools and part of which was reserved for higher education — while the next relief bill signed into law in December had $82 billion for schools, the bulk of which went to K-12.
To date, there is no data in Connecticut on how school districts have spent their previous education money they received and what their future financial needs are, Hammersley said.
“Funds received to date from have been applied towards PPE and cleaning supplies, software for distance learning, student technology support specialists, HVAC repairs, bus sanitizing, and special education evaluations, among other areas,” said Ryan Fealey, director of finance for Stamford Public Schools. “Additional federal funds may be applied to these areas, as well as academic and social-emotional support for our students and families.”
Connecticut’s public schools have not yet seen any of the $440 million allocated from the December coronavirus bill. Under Gov. Ned Lamont’s proposed budget, the state would provide half the money to schools in fiscal year 2022 and half in 2023, Hammersley said.
Connecticut will use the federal funding to pay for part of a scheduled increase in education spending that pre-pandemic, the state was planning on paying for. Lamont has not made any similar reduction in state higher education spending, Hammersley said.
Lamont has not committed to avoiding further reductions in state education spending.
In interviews, school leaders said their biggest fear is after the federal aid to schools and local and state governments runs dry, districts will plunge off a “fiscal cliff.” They worry state education funding for schools will drop precipitously in two to three years time, if states use federal dollars now to cover their own education obligations.
“Schools are going to have be careful on how they spend this money to avoid a damaging cliff phenomenon,” Murphy said. “There are ways to do that. I don’t know that I’d necessarily advise school districts to hire a whole bunch more permanent classroom teachers with this money. But what you absolutely can do is bring in paraprofessionals, special education professionals, you can bring in social workers — I really focus on bringing in a class of employees who can support the immediate needs of kids who are going to have to catch up really fast.”
The American Rescue Plan also includes $371 million for colleges and universities in the state, as well as $277 million for Connecticut child care providers.
Without investment, Connecticut could lose up to 46,349 licensed child care slots, approximately 48 percent of the child care supply, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, warned.
“These funds will help our child care providers cover the costs of reopening, and in turn, help working parents return to work knowing their children are in a safe environment,” DeLauro said. “While this funding will support costs associated with the pandemic, it has the potential to expand access to child care beyond pre-pandemic levels. But, this cannot be the end of the federal government’s support for the critical industry.”
Unlike past coronavirus bills, this one written primarily by Democrats received no Republican votes in the House and is not expected to win any in the Senate.
On Thursday, Senate Republicans lambasted the education outlays in the bill as too expensive and unnecessary. They pointed to a report from the Congressional Budget Office from mid-February that said that said most of the education dollars from earlier coronavirus bills remain to be spent so “CBO anticipates that the bulk of spending of funds provided in the reconciliation recommendations would occur after 2021.”
Republicans said this showed that the new spending was not really about spending to re-open schools for in-person learning, but instead a huge increase in education spending hiding behind the guise of emergency relief.
“It feels like extortion,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “It feels like we have to pay off the teachers union to get them to bless what we already know to be true, which is students can safely go back to the classroom.”
Democrats insisted the money from previous bills had been allocated, even if it was not already spent. And they say, schools were still staring down huge future costs to try to get kids back on track.
“We're going to have an enormous amount of work to do to deal with all the learning loss, to deal with kids who have been essentially completely absent from school for most of the pandemic and that’s expensive,” Murphy said. “It's going to take at the very least, the entirety of 2021-22 to try to address the education and social traumas kids have been through.”
When a hard rain falls in Ridgefield, First Selectman Rudy Marconi knows where the runoff will overflow the gutters and flow across the backyards.
“We all show up,’’ he said of the other town leaders who go from torrent to torrent, checking out the storm water rush.
These rainy day meetings will become more frequent. Climate change means more moisture in the atmosphere and heavier, more frequent downpours across the state.
For the immediate future, the best thing towns can do is prepare to mitigate those changes. New state legislation may help them do that.
Gov. Ned Lamont has proposed House Bill 6441 – An Act Concerning Climate Change Adaptation. There will be a public hearing on the bill Monday.
There are no overarching state mandates in the bill. Instead it contains enabling legislation that will allow towns to create their own climate change mitigation plans — and fund them — if they so choose.
“In Connecticut, if you want to do something, you have to have the legislation to allow you to do something,’’ said Robert LaFrance, policy director for Audubon Connecticut.
“It’s a huge step forward,’’ said Amy Blaymore Paterson, executive director of the Connecticut Land Conservation Council.
The proposed bill would, if passed, allow the state’s Green Bank to expand its portfolio to fund climate mitigation projects.
It would allow towns to create stormwater districts to address the issue of stormwater run-off and how it sends pollution into
the state’s waterways and eventually, Long Island Sound. It would allow existing flood and erosion control boards to address the effects of climate change.
Most importantly, it would allow towns to charge a conveyance fee for real estate transactions. The towns would then set up a separate account for the fees they collect and designate a town commission or organization responsible for allocating the money.
This money could only be used to buy open space if the town meets the state’s housing standards of having at least 10 percent of its housing stock deemed affordable. According to a 2019 state report only six municipalities in Fairfield and Litchfield counties meet that standard - Bridgeport, Danbury, North Canaan, Norwalk, Torrington and Winchester.
Bethel First Selectman said he objects to towns being penalized for not meeting the affordable housing standards.
“But aside from that, that, I like it,’’ he said of the bill. “It’s a shame we don’t have stronger action from the federal government on climate change – maybe with the new administration, we will. But for now, the state has to do what it can.’’
Toward that end, LaFrance said the legislation does give towns latitude on spending the money they collect.
Work could include tree planting; urban forestry; wetland restoration; mitigation efforts to control flooding, including construction of swales and other landscaping designs.
“Let’s say you had a town park that gets flooded regularly,’’ LaFrance said. “The town could use the money to mitigate that flooding.’’
It could also provide a town with matching funds to apply for grants that address climate change or to fund long-term resiliency planning.
“It’s pretty broad.’’ said Catherine Rawson, executive director of the Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy — the state’s largest land trust
The legislation addresses this simple fact. Climate change is happening and people have to learn to address it.
“I think that’s happening.’’ LaFrance said. “A lot of town are now studying resiliency.’’
Paterson, of the Land Conservation Council, said the state’s 130 land trusts, like towns, are increasingly concerned with not just acquiring open space but in considering climate change in the stewardship of that land.
“They’re considering issues like wildlife protection preserving grasslands, forest preservation,’ she said.
Ann Astarita, executive director of the Roxbury Land Trust, said all land trusts are now thinking in these terms. She points to six acres of grassland the Roxbury trust is now using to provide wildlife habitat and to promote pollinators.
“I think it’s a mission of land trusts in general,’’ she said.
In Washington, Rory Larson, conservation science manager of the Steep Rock Association, said the association is now paying added attention to preserving intact forests and wildlife corridors within those forests.
“We’re doing a lot of work with invasive species,’’ he said.
In Ridgefield, Marconi said the town is now studying issues like the impact of road salt on wetlands.
“We need to take better care of our environment,’’ he said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.’’
“In Connecticut, if you want to do something, you have to have the legislation to allow you to do something.”
Robert LaFrance, policy director for Audubon Connecticut
MEXICO CITY — In a camp at the U.S.-Mexico border, some asylum seekers were told by officials that the U.S. government may reopen their cases and they would eventually be able to enter the U.S. to wait out the asylum process.
The new opening for people previously denied came as Mexican authorities worked to close the improvised camp along the banks of the Rio Grande that has housed thousands of asylum seekers over the more than two years it existed.
Late Friday night, an official with Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said via Twitter that the last asylum seekers with active cases from the camp had been processed and the camp was closed. Others with closed asylum cases who were told their cases could be reopened were urged to move to a shelter. But some still remained in the camp Saturday.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment Friday and Saturday.
Last month, the Biden administration began processing asylum seekers who had been forced to wait out the long process from Mexico during the administration of former President Donald Trump. The Matamoros camp was one of the most visible signs of a policy implemented in response to high numbers of asylum seekers by an administration that worked in various ways to make it more difficult to access protective status in the United States.
On Saturday, Juan Antonio Sierra, who runs the migrant shelter in Matamoros confirmed that he had committed to housing asylum seekers with closed cases so that the camp could be closed.
Sierra said that the day before, the U.S. Consul in Matamoros, Yolanda Parra, met with officials from the
UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration, Mexico’s National Immigration Institute, Sierra and some migrants. She agreed that the U.S. government would evaluate the possible reopening of closed cases for the approximately 50 people who remained in the camp, Sierra said.
The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security.
“I was going to take them to the Casa del Migrante until it was sure they were going to cross,” Sierra said. The goal, he said, was to avoid new people arriving at the camp and assure that those who were still there would only cross the border when it was clear their cases would be reopened and avoid that they were immediately deported.
“They’re trying to reopen (the cases),” Sierra said. “You’re not going to send a person so that they deport them to their country.” But he said the migrants were so desperate they “wanted to go without guarantees.”
Asked if word of reopened cases could draw more people to the border, Rev. Francisco Gallardo, who is in charge of the shelter, said “the avalanche is already here, a lot of people are arriving.” He warned it could become more complicated, because there were signs that a new camp would form.
The shelter already has more than 200 migrants staying there.
By Friday afternoon, only several dozen asylum seekers remained in the riverside camp. Workers dismantled primitive shelters and hauled away portable toilets. Friday night, power was cut to the camp. But even with the promise that their cases could be reopened, many resisted abandoning the camp for fear that a less public space would allow their shrunken number to be more easily ignored by the U.S. government.
A Honduran asylum seeker
who has lived in the camp for two years with her son said that personnel from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees told her Friday that “the United States had approved the reopening of our cases and that we had to wait some days for them to authorize the crossing to the U.S.”
The woman, a former police officer who requested anonymity because she did not want to jeopardize her case, said that the U.S. government had rejected her case earlier. With the help of lawyers, she appealed and was turned down again in November. She has filed a subsequent appeal.
“Now there’s hope,” she said.
Others were informed of the same, she said. Some were told their situation could be addressed in a couple of days, others in 10 days. She said they didn’t give her a date.
They advised her to move to a local migrant shelter that would provide better living conditions, but “no one wants to move because we believe they are going to forget us,” she said.
Previously, U.S. officials have not said if people will be allowed back in the U.S. at some future date to pursue asylum claims that were denied or dismissed under the Trump administration’s so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as “Remain in Mexico.” They have described the re-entry of an estimated 26,000 people with active cases as an initial step but have not said what any subsequent measures would entail.
The Matamoros camp has been an uncomfortable monument to the exceptional policy for its residents, as well as the U.S. and Mexican governments.
Non-governmental organizations
and volunteers eventually gave it some organization and basic sanitation and health services, but it existed in a city held in the sway of organized crime. Many residents were fearful of venturing beyond its borders for fear of rampant kidnappings and extortion.
Human Rights Watch published a report Friday that said it “has consistently found that migrants in Mexico are exposed to rape, kidnapping, extortion, assault, and psychological trauma.”
“Tens of thousands of migrant families, including Venezuelans seeking protection from torture, persecution, and arbitrary imprisonment, have been abandoned by the U.S. and Mexican governments to suffer extortion and violence in Mexico,” said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.
In late January, 19 people
— 16 of them Guatemalan migrants — were shot dead near Camargo, upriver from Matamoros near the border with Texas. A dozen state police have been arrested in connection with their killings.
On Monday, in Nuevo Laredo, another Tamaulipas border city, a Honduran woman and her 10-year-old son were shot and gravely wounded.
The Honduras consul in the area, Juan Carlos Ponce, confirmed the attack and said that Thursday they remained hospitalized, but declined to share details because they were victims of a serious crime.
On Thursday, 10 Democratic members of Congress told U.S. Secretary of Antony Blinken that the U.S. government must help to push for greater protections for migrants and asylum seekers waiting in Mexico.