Congressional Negotiations for Second COVID-19 Relief Bill Collapse. Nothing Is Forthcoming to Repair State Budgets or Help Local School Districts
The prospect of a second coronavirus relief bill devolved into chaos over the weekend as the White House/Congressional negotiations disintegrated, and President Donald Trump offered to replace Congressional action with executive orders and executive memoranda which are reported to be of questionable constitutionality. Left out entirely was federal assistance to support public school reopening and to keep state and local government services fully staffed and functioning.
Not only has chaos ensued, but the President has actively politicized the situation. On Monday morning at 9:10 AM, President Trump tweeted: “So now Schumer and Pelosi want to meet to make a deal. Amazing how it all works, isn’t it. Where have they been for the last 4 weeks when they were ‘hardliners’, and only wanted BAILOUT MONEY for Democrat run states and cities that are failing badly? They know my phone number!”
In the real world where the rest of us reside, school districts—trying to figure out how to reopen as the pandemic rages or provide additional access to online learning— face huge costs, which many school districts are clearly unable to afford. I was stunned on Sunday night by an NBC news report that the Collier County Public Schools in Florida—a geographically large district covering Naples on the Gulf Coast, the Everglades, and agricultural communities like Immokalee—had spent $26 million ($578 per student) to make its schools safe for 45,000 public school students to return. It is wonderful that this school district is able to support such preparations, but most school districts cannot afford adjustments amounting to $578 per student.
Over the weekend, Trump promised through executive action to provide an unemployment benefit supplement of $400 per week with 25 percent of the money coming from state governments. The President’s allegation is that states have lots of CARES Act money (from the first stimulus bill passed in March) left over. Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine had already slashed his state’s FY 2020 state budget by $775 million before the end of the fiscal CONTINUE READING: Congressional Negotiations for Second COVID-19 Relief Bill Collapse. Nothing Is Forthcoming to Repair State Budgets or Help Local School Districts | janresseger