ESSR III funds to pay for summer maintenance at BCSD
BONNERS FERRY —- Due to the failure of the March bond, Boundary County School District officials said they are exploring options on how to pay for needed facility maintenance in the summer. One solution: Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds or ESSR III.
The district has been allotted federal dollars through the state of Idaho. ESSR III is the third installment of these funds.
However, board trustee Mary Fioravanti said she was opposed to using the funds for school maintenance due to the funds being from what she said is recently printed money by the federal government.
“My concern for spending ESSR III money is that this is money that has been printed out of thin air. It is not revenue,” she said.
Fioravanti added that it would not be fiscally responsible for the district to use ESSR III dollars since it would, in her opinion, violate one of its core principles of being fiscally responsible.
Trustee Teresa Rae agreed that for the federal government to print more money is not fiscally responsible. And while the district could pass on the money, Rae said if they don’t take the money another district will and BCSD will still need to pay for maintenance repairs — with funds they do not have.
“If we don’t take it, somebody else will and make their school better while we're still sliding further and further behind,” Rae said. “We go down to state meetings and pass schools that cost $30- $80 million to build and we can’t pass a bond for $14 million.”
Rae said that she’d hate to take the money, but didn’t know where the funds would come from.
When it comes to ESSR funds, critics of the funding contend that if school districts fall out of compliance with future updates to the rules and regulations of receiving the funds,they would have to pay all the funds back in full.
However, Cal Bateman, BCSD business manager, said the state has made the agreement with the federal government to receive the funding and has districts apply for the funds like they would a grant application. Therefore in a future scenario, if the BCSD is found out of compliance then the state would be responsible for the return of those funds, not the school district, he said.
School districts have a deadline for spending the federal funds, if they are not spent by that time then the money is given back to the state and redistributed across districts.
The board approved using the ESSR III funds in the 2-1 vote for summer maintenance of facilities. Trustee Nicki Weaver did not vote due to needing to leave the meeting early.