Sedro-Woolley School district has accepted $8.19m of Covid funding since the beginning of the pandemic,[1] with the condition that schools give up decision-making authority for Covid responses to the CDC. This $8.19m of federal tax dollars is in addition to the $56m of state tax dollars and $10m of local levy tax dollars that the school district already receives.[2] Taxpayers are feeling the burden of this triple tax dipping alongside historic inflation, and the school district is now asking for continued levy funds on the ballot on February 8.[3] Despite the rising funding of public schools to nearly $19k per student, student competency of basic standards has instead declined to unsatisfactory levels.[4][5][6] The worst part of accepting these funds is that stipulations attached to the funds prevent local school districts from setting local policies,[7] and families are prevented from making decisions for their children, presumably even if state mandates expired.
Covid grants from federal sources include the CARES ACT, aka ESSER I ($647k), FEMA ($62k) and ESSER II ($2.2m) & III ($5m) funds for a total of $7.9m. In addition, Skagit County awarded the school district $251k of CARES ACT funding.[8] Only 46% Covid funding has been received to date, with $4.4m additional funds to come through 2024.[9] Federal ESSER fund expenditures are documented for each school district in the state in multiple reports maintained by the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).
- OSPI ESSER Funding Dashboard (link) – high level ESSER expenditures, lacking details
- OSPI ESSER Claims Funding Detail (link) – accounting details through Nov. 2021
Covid fund expenditures are clear as mud – categories and reporting for ESSER funds are broad and inconsistent. Transparency of information has declined significantly on OSPI dashboards since November 2021, possibly in response to public interest and critique of the alarming funding and stipulations.[10] For example, the ability to parse out “Teaching” spending into relevant categories such as salaries, benefits, supplies, etc is gone. Due to the reporting change, the following expenditures marked “*” do not account for the nearly $600k that have been spent by SWSD since Nov. 2021.
Expenditures from ESSER II, III and Cares Act (ESSER I) for Sedro-Woolley School District include:
- $769k spent on teacher salaries*
- $35k on classified salaries*
- $323k on payroll taxes and benefits including unemployment insurance, family medical leave (etc…)*
- Food ate up $774k of the funds from ESSER II and Cares Act
- $89k on “Remote Learning;” reports show expenditures were actually related to transportation costs for food[11][12]
Cares Act funds awarded by Skagit County were spent to fund:
- $30k of hotel rentals and housing assistance for 27 individuals in November, December and January of 2020[13]
FEMA fund expenditures include:
- $20k spent on “PPE” (Cricut Machine, face masks & shields, gowns, building materials) including: $676 on stickers & $3k on badge holders [14]
- $38k of FEMA funds were spent on hand sanitizers
- $2,596 on thermometers
Federal Covid ESSER Fund Guidelines require that school districts develop and publicize a plan for the use of its Covid funds on their website, including a description of “how the funds will be used to implement prevention and mitigation strategies that are, to the greatest extent practicable, consistent with the most recent CDC guidance on reopening schools.”[19] Currently, the CDC recommends “universal indoor masking by all students (age 2 and older), staff, teachers, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.”[20] In addition, school districts are required to “give the public an opportunity to provide input in the development of its plan” including students and families, and to “seek public input and take such input into account in determining whether to revise its plan” every 6 months.[21]
The school district made their ESSER spending plan public on Jan 13, 2022 [Fig 5], long after nearly $3m was spent.[22] This is not transparency, nor is it a plan. This is an after-the-fact cartoon that omits all details that taxpayers are concerned with. It falls right in line with OSPI’s reduced transparency of ESSER expenditure reporting, possibly because of increased scrutiny. The school district has certainly received a lot of input from the community on its Covid policies and spending, but any input that contradicts the federal stipulations has been ignored.[23] The district has been bought and paid for.
After reviewing Covid fund expenditures I have more questions than answers. I do know that $8.19m is a lot of federal tax dollars. I know that transparency for Covid fund expenditures is extremely lacking from OSPI and especially from Sedro-Woolley School District. I know that accounting categories are not straightforward and it seems impossible to identify what a massive chunk of our tax dollars were actually spent on (i.e. I would not consider “Remote Learning” to be transportation costs). I know that more than $1m has been spent on salaries and benefits, and I am led to wonder how much of this was for education as usual, and what the district plans for the funds typically spent on salaries and benefits. I know that 27 people received housing assistance, but I do not know what qualifications they met for the funds. I know that $221k of CARES ACT funds have been received by the district, but “Not assigned to Exp. Items yet,” which means we can’t see what they were spent on.[24] I also know that taxpayers deserve to see how their dollars are spent, and that is not happening.
SWSD has made a deal to represent the interests of the government with its federal funds and associated stipulations instead of the interests of the community.[25] The school district follows the mandate that schools require masks on all students and staff, but disregards the federal requirement to seek and take public input into how the federal Covid tax dollars have been and will be spent. The district has yet to receive $4.4m of these funds, so the government (i.e. school board) will continue to stifle parental rights as the money trickles in through 2024, and school board members that weren’t ousted in the 2021 General Election will continue to ignore emails, speeches, and meeting requests from the public.