Mississippi received over $2.5 billion from the federal government in pandemic relief money in 2020 and 2021 to improve education and to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. With a little over a year left to use the money, schools have made progress but still have over a billion dollars left to spend.
The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund was created initially by the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act in 2020 and then subsequently replenished in two other pieces of federal legislation, creating three separate pots of money for states and districts to spend.
Each pot of money has its own spending deadline – Sept. 30 of 2022, 2023, and 2024 respectively. A built-in grace period gives schools a few extra months to disburse final payments, but the U.S. Department of Education also allowed states to request extensions. The Mississippi Department of Education confirmed it received an extension for ESSER I, the first pot of money, with a new deadline of March 30, 2024. Extensions on the second pot are also available, but a state education agency spokesperson said Mississippi has not applied yet.
School districts in Mississippi have spent nearly all of the funds from the first pot, but progress spending ESSER II and III varies significantly by district.
There are a wide variety of allowable expenses under the ESSER guidelines, but the U.S. Department of Education instructs school districts to prioritize efforts to “safely reopen schools for full-time instruction for all students, maintain safe in-person operations, advance educational equity, and build capacity.”
A Mississippi Today analysis of the spending plans in three school districts found that ESSER I funds went primarily to reopening schools — covering sanitation, masks and new technology. Districts focused on addressing learning loss and infrastructure investments when budgeting ESSER II and III.
In Choctaw County, the district has spent 100 percent of their ESSER I funds, 97.9 percent of their ESSER II funds and 36.3 percent of their ESSER III funds.
The district received $501,882 for ESSER I funds and all have been allocated or spent. The funds were spent on employee salaries, benefits, professional and technical services, supplies and property.
In the ESSER II funds, the district received $1.89 million and have spent $1.84 million. All of ESSER II has been spent on property. So far, the funds have been spent on employee salaries, employee benefits, supplies and property.
In the district’s ESSER III funds, $4.1 million was received and the district has allocated $1.5 million.
In Winston County, the Louisville Municipal School District has spent 100 percent of ESSER I funds, 84.5 percent of ESSER II funds, and 21.7 percent of ESSER III.
LMSD received $1.009 million in ESSER I funds, and all have been spent. All of the funds were spent on employee salaries, employee benefits, professional and technical services, supplies, property and other purchased services.
In ESSER II, LMSD received $4.1 million and of that $3.5 million has been allocated. The ESSER II funds were allocated to salaries, benefits, professional and technical services, supplies and property.
LMSD has received $9.1 million in ESSER III funds and $1.99 million has been allocated. The funds were allocated to professional and technical services and supplies. The biggest bulk of the funding has went to property.
FutureEd, an education policy think tank at Georgetown University, found that the higher the poverty rate in a district, the more likely administrators were to allocate money to heating, venting and air conditioning (HVAC) updates and to purchase new instructional materials.
The Mississippi Department of Education also keeps between 7 to 10% of each pot to invest in statewide initiatives and to cover administrative costs.
Districts spent their money in nine major categories, which are described below.
Employee salaries: salaries for teachers, professional personnel, instructional aides, and substitute teachers; overtime pay, performance-based salary incentives, and COVID-19 incentive payments
Employee benefits: health insurance, life insurance, retirement contributions, unemployment compensation
Professional and technical services: educational consultants, counseling services, lawyers, architects, accountants, nurses, data processing services
Property services: water and sewer, electricity, communication, custodial, lawn care, construction services, maintenance services
Other purchased services: student transportation services, insurance (other than employee benefits), postal services, advertising
Supplies: software, gasoline, transportation supplies, food, books, periodicals
Property: land, buildings/building improvements, computer equipment, furniture, connectivity equipment, cars, buses
Other objects: dues and fees, interest, debt, payments to state agencies
Other uses: summer food, indirect costs
