The shadow of a potential $465 million clawback of COVID relief funding from the U.S. Department of Education hung over West Virginia’s 2024 legislative regular session.
But Department of Education officials expressed optimism in an interview with the Gazette-Mail on Friday that such a clawback won’t happen.
“Recovery of funds would be an ultimate last resort, and I certainly don’t foresee that happening in this case,” they said. “You never know, but we’ve worked with West Virginia to resolve it [in past years]. So I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to reach a resolution.”
The officials, who were not authorized to speak as individuals and were speaking on background, were alluding to West Virginia being in this situation before.
West Virginia is again seeking a waiver from the Department of Education’s Maintenance of Effort requirements that mandate states maintain support for elementary, secondary and higher education relative to their overall spending to qualify for COVID relief funding.
The American Rescue Plan Act allows the Education Department to grant a waiver of those requirements “for the purpose of relieving fiscal burdens incurred by States in preventing, preparing for, and responding to the coronavirus.”
W.Va. out of compliance for 2023
West Virginia is out of compliance for elementary, secondary and higher education for fiscal year 2023 and is seeking a waiver, Education Department officials confirmed Friday. The state had been out of compliance only for elementary and secondary education, not higher education, the previous fiscal year.
“Now the ball is in our court to give them a formal response,” they said, adding that there’s no time frame for that response to come, other than as soon as the agency can provide it.
The fiscal limbo had a significant effect on West Virginia’s legislative session, causing leadership to discard some budget priorities, including $50 million for an empty flood-resiliency fund, while eyeing a potential special session in May to further review the budget after the waiver request is resolved.
West Virginia has been one of a few states to repeatedly request waivers related to the Department of Education COVID relief funding. The state’s latest request has drawn criticism the state should spend more on education.
Details on W.Va.’s waiver request
Some states have spent more on health care to respond to COVID, meaning they spent proportionally less on education and required a Maintenance of Effort waiver. States must submit data substantiating the levels of state support for elementary and secondary education, and for higher education, for any fiscal year for which a waiver is requested.
States also must explain how fiscal burdens affected their ability to “maintain fiscal effort.”
In a waiver request dated Feb. 21 — past the midway point of the legislative session — Gov. Jim Justice said West Virginia is on track to steadily increase education spending on a per-pupil basis and cited expenses in noneducational areas increasing at a greater rate because of inflation and worker shortages in corrections, nursing and child welfare.
West Virginia’s waiver request was filed ahead of a March 15 deadline, the federal officials noted, adding that further documents from the state came later.
“So it’s only been a matter of weeks that we’ve been in conversation with them,” the officials said, adding that five states have outstanding requests.
West Virginia failed to “maintain effort” in fiscal year 2022 for elementary and secondary education by $23.7 million, or 0.94 percentage points.
The Department of Education approved fiscal year 2022 waivers for Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington, in addition to West Virginia, according to agency data.
The Governor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.
