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Recovery.gov - Track the Money

Recovery.gov is the U.S. government's official website that provides easy access to data
related to Recovery Act spending and allows for the reporting of potential fraud, waste, and abuse.

Agency Reporting


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Program Plan
Department of Education - State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Recovery Plan
Updated 05/14/2009
Objectives
Program Purpose

Stabilize State and local government budgets to avoid reductions in education and other essential public services while driving education reform in four key areas: teacher effectiveness and inequities in the distribution of highly qualified teachers; rigorous college- and career-ready standards and assessments; targeted, intensive support and effective interventions to turn around struggling schools; and pre-K-through-college-and-career data systems.


Public Benefits

The overall goals of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) and other U.S. Department of Education components of the ARRA are to stimulate the economy in the short term and invest in education and other essential public services to ensure the long-term economic health of our nation. The success of the education part of the ARRA will depend on the shared commitment and responsibility of students, parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, education boards, college presidents, State school chiefs, governors, local officials, and federal officials. Collectively, States must advance ARRA's short-term economic goals by investing quickly, and must support ARRA's long-term economic goals by investing wisely, using these funds to strengthen education, drive reforms, and improve results for students from early learning through college.

Four principles guide the distribution and use of SFSF and other ARRA funds:

1. Spend funds quickly to save and create jobs. The Department of Education will distribute funds quickly to States in order to avert layoffs and create jobs. States and LEAs in turn are urged to move rapidly to develop plans for using funds, consistent with the law's reporting and accountability requirements, and to promptly begin spending funds to help drive the nation's economic recovery.

2. Improve student achievement through school improvement and reform.

3. Ensure transparency, reporting, and accountability. To prevent fraud and abuse, support the most effective uses of ARRA funds, and accurately measure and track results, recipients must publicly report on how funds are used. Due to the unprecedented scope and importance of this investment, ARRA funds are subject to additional and more rigorous reporting requirements than normally apply to grant recipients.

4. Invest one-time ARRA funds thoughtfully to minimize the "funding cliff." SFSF represents a historic but temporary infusion of funds. These funds should be invested in ways that do not result in unsustainable continuing commitments after the funding expires.

Specifically, governors must use 81.8 percent of the SFSF State grant funds to support public elementary, secondary, and higher education, and, as applicable, early childhood education programs and services. These funds must be used to help restore for FY 2009, 2010, and 2011 State support for public elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education to the greater of the FY 2008 or FY 2009 level. The funds needed to restore support for elementary and secondary education must be distributed using the State's primary elementary and secondary education funding formulae. The funds for higher education must go to public IHEs. If any SFSF funds remain after the State has restored State support for elementary and secondary education and higher education, the State must award those funds to LEAs on the basis of their relative shares under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).

Governors must use 18.2 percent of the SFSF State grant funds for public safety and other government services, which may include assistance for early learning, elementary and secondary education, and public IHEs. In addition, States may use these funds for modernization, renovation, or repair of public schools and public or private college facilities.


Measures
No Data Available

Schedule and Milestones

The Department plans to award all SFSF funds by the end of December 2009.


Milestones
Milestone Completion Date
The Department will post for public comment the Notice of Proposed Priorities (NPP) for the Phase 2 grant competition in June 2009. The NPP will include the proposed performance measures. 06/30/2009
The Department released the SFSF State grants application and general program guidance on April 1, 2009. The Department made its first Phase 1 SFSF grant award to California, Illinois, and South Dakota on April 17, 2009, and will be making Phase 1 awards on a rolling basis. The Department released detailed guidance on the ARRA maintenance-of-effort requirements on May 1, 2009 and expects to award all Phase 1 grants by August 3, 2009. 08/03/2009
The Department expects to make all Phase 2 SFSF awards by the end of December 2009. 12/31/2009

Projects and Activities

Subject to limited restrictions in the Recovery Act, LEAs may use their share of the SFSF education funds (81.8 percent of the full SFSF allocation) for any activity authorized under the ESEA (including the modernization, renovation, or repair of public school facilities), the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (Adult Education Act), or the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins Act), including the modernization, renovation, or repair of public school facilities.

The following are examples of ways that LEAs can use these funds:

-Pay the salaries of teachers or other school personnel who would have to be laid-off in the absence of these funds.
-Modernize school facilities such as by investing in green technology.
-Increase student participation in rigorous advanced courses such as Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and dual high school-college enrollment.
-Train principals, teachers, guidance counselors, and other staff to use data to identify the specific help students need to succeed, to adjust classroom instruction in order to better address student strengths and weaknesses, and to target professional development and other resources on student and teacher needs.
-Redesign teacher professional development and school schedules to ensure that teacher learning opportunities are sustained, job-embedded, collaborative, data-driven, and focused on student instructional needs.
-Extend learning time
-Strengthen and expand early learning

Public IHEs may use their share of the funds for education and general expenditures in a way that will mitigate the need to raise tuition and fees for in-State students, or for modernization, renovation, or repair of higher education facilities that are primarily used for instruction, research, or student housing.

Governors must use 18.2 percent of the SFSF State grant funds for public safety and other government services, which may include assistance for early learning, elementary and secondary education, and public IHEs. For example, States may use these funds to pay the salaries of public safety officials. In addition, States may use these funds for modernization, renovation, or repair of public schools and IHE facilities.


Review Process

To hold States accountable for the appropriate management and use of funds, the Department will be conducting monitoring calls with States on a rolling basis. In addition, the Department’s Risk Management Service will establish a framework that will inform technical assistance and monitoring efforts. The framework will include any past issues that States have had in obligating and expending other Federal funds in a timely manner. Further, the Department’s Office of Inspector General will begin to visit States to conduct investigations in May. In addition, the Department will begin conducting monitoring site visits in October.


Cost and Performance Plan

In an effort to provide useful information to the public, the Department will post all successful applications on its website: http://www.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/resources.html. As of May 14, 2009, 13 applications have been posted. The Department will post additional useful information to that website as needed. In addition, the Department has posted all State allocations at http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/tables.html. The Department will provide guidance to States on how to report expenditure data to Recovery.gov, and is considering whether to require States to submit additional expenditure data.


Energy Efficiency Spending Plans

n/a


Program Plan Award Types
No Data Available