(The Center Square) – Attorneys general from 16 states, including Nevada’s Aaron Ford, have won a court order to restore over $1 billion in pandemic-era federal funds for schools.
The funds were part of a COVID-19 relief aid package from the height of the pandemic. President Donald Trump had canceled the remaining $1 billion, saying it had been too long to still spend the money.
“Earlier this year Trump tried to block states from using nearly $1 billion of educational funding,” said Ford in a video posted to Instagram. “That money was supposed to support low income and unhoused students – tutoring, mental health care and other services still helping kids dealing with the fallout from Covid.”
Former President Joe Biden had previously established the funds could be used until March 2026.
Last week’s court order restoring the funds came on the heels of a lawsuit filed April 10 by the state attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The suit was in response to a March 28 announcement by the U.S. Department of Education that the funds would no longer be available – that same day.
“You were entitled to the full award only if you liquidated all financial obligations within 120 days of the end of the period of performance,” read Secretary of Education Linda McMahon’s letter. “You failed to do so.”
The attorneys general’s lawsuit said that although the pandemic had ended, the effects persisted in schools. It also noted the impact was disproportionately worse for poor and homeless children.
The letter had promised to allow for extensions if the state could prove how the funds were needed to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on students’ education.
The funds had been part of a much larger package of $190 billion allotted through the American Rescue Plan Act.
The lawsuit is the latest in a flurry of pushback from Ford and other Democratic attorneys general to the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts and perceived overstepping into state rights.
