Closing Books on States' ARRA Aid Proves Tricky
Closing out the books on the $800 billion-plus economic-stimulus package from 2009 is proving to be a messy—and even politically dicey—endeavor.
As the Sept. 30 deadline passed for states and districts to spend the majority of their education stimulus funds, more than $2 billion was still left, at least on paper, according to the latest U.S. Department of Education spending report updated through the end of last month.
But just how much actually was unspent, versus just unclaimed, remained unclear, since states technically have until Jan. 3 to deplete their balances in three major funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Those funds are the $48.6 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, the $10 billion in additional Title I aid, and the $11.3 billion in additional special education funds. (Some smaller pieces of these funds, such as Race to the Top or School Improvement Grants, have longer spending timelines.) If any 2009 economic-stimulus money isn’t spent, it reverts back...
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