Chalkbeat Colorado | Erica Meltzer
“The last thing I want to do is get time for the audit, and they say, ‘Oh, you have to send this money back because you didn’t use it right… I get tired of hearing, ‘be creative.’ I’ll get creative and have to send back $400,000.”
School districts are looking for certainty, security that they will be able to reopen for the upcoming academic year and have the budget to do so properly. While state and federal governments are encouraging creativity in meeting individual district needs with COVID relief funds, the US Department of Education has issued little in the way of guidance regarding how funds should be spent. This leaves administrators fearful that the money, which may already be short of local needs, will be pulled back after it has been used.
