The Kentucky Department of Education is asking for a funding extension in 13 school districts where projects are threatened if the federal government continues to halt payouts of pandemic relief funds.
Districts previously had until next spring 2026 to spend the COVID-19 money. However, the U.S. Education Department (USED) announced in March it was suspending relief fund payments.
“Compounding the problem is that in order to get the extension to spend this money from USED, school districts and KDE have signed contracts that obligated how the money would be spent," Kentucky Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher said in a news release. "Those contracts still exist, and some hard decisions have to be made about how to pay for these projects if USED does not honor its previous commitments.”
USED said it would consider extending COVID relief payouts on an individual project-specific basis.
In southern Kentucky, the remaining COVID funds held by the Caverna Independent school system were being used to buy two new buses, including one for special needs students.
Superintendent Amanda Abell told WKU Public Radio that one of the buses arrived last week, leaving the district uncertain how to pay for it.
“We received the bus because they were ordered almost a year ago and we were thinking we could draw down the funds after the buses came in," Abell explained. "However, now the funding’s been rescinded, so we will have to find another way to pay for these buses."
The second new bus is expected to arrive any day, leaving Caverna schools to pay $269,401.
"We will have enough in our contingency to cover it," Abell said. "We just weren’t planning on using that, so if something else happens, we may not have funds to take care of an emergency.”
Other school districts in the commonwealth have much larger gaps to fill, including Christian County. That system had $7.9 million in COVID funding rescinded, which was going to be used to help build a new high school.
Laurel County had the most COVID money left to spend in Kentucky with $10 million set aside to build multi-purpose facilities at the district’s two high schools. Construction on those projects is already half-finished, and Superintendent Denise Griebel said completion can't be delayed, citing a safety issue.
In addition to the school districts' projects, KDE had $18 million in unspent pandemic relief dollars originally approved to be spent through March 2026. The state planned to use that money to increase the number of students at the Governor's School for the Arts program this summer, among other initiatives.
