Jobs Bill and Education Funding

Education’s less-than-certain windfall, By David Harrison, September 3, 2010, Stateline.org: “It sounded at first like the best of news for South Carolina. The $26 billion jobs bill passed by Congress earlier this month would send $143.7 million to the state, which has lost between 2,800 and 3,900 teaching jobs over the past two years. Instead, after taking a look at the bill’s fine print, state education officials found a flaw that could deprive them of that money. A set of provisions in the bill requires states to have kept up their level of higher education spending this year, something South Carolina did not do. The bill, which offers money only for K-12 schools, included the higher education funding requirement as a holdover from previous drafts of the legislation. ‘It appears to us that the only fix is going to be possible through Congress,’ says Jim Foster, of the South Carolina Department of Education. U.S. Representative Rep. James Clyburn has promised to help once Congress reconvenes in September. Three weeks after the bill’s passage, several states are – like South Carolina – grappling with its ramifications. Sparking the confusion is language wedged into the U.S. Department of Education’s rules for allocating the money. While the provisions that could harm South Carolina were also present – and stricter – in the 2009 Recovery Act, the stimulus bill made it possible for states to ask Washington to waive those requirements. Thirteen states and Puerto Rico applied for waivers. But this month’s jobs bill does not offer waivers, which means that those states that have made drastic cuts to higher education could miss out on the windfall…”