Federal cuts make deficits worse for schools

When they wrestled with how to allocate a pay boost not all covered by extra state money last month, school directors didn’t know the federal government had just announced it would not pay far more money Congress had already promised, money that would typically be paid the next day.

That was June 30 as the Grand Coulee Dam School District Board of Directors learned the $136,000 the state would pay for a 2.5% cost-of-living increase next year wouldn’t cover the $679,000 of actual cost involved, leaving a $543,000 hole in the coming year’s district budget.

That wasn’t the worst of it. President Donald Trump’s Education Department had just notified states that day that it would withhold $6.8 billion in federal funds for K-12 schools that would typically have been sent out July 1, funds already allocated by Congress.

That means Grand Coulee Dam’s schools are now missing about $1.6 million to $2 million in the 2025-26 budget, Superintendent Rod Broadnax said Tuesday.

“We’re trying to do the best we can without cutting programs or people,” he said.

He said he’d been working with Business Manager Suzie Marchand and Carrie Derr, the district’s federal and state programs specialist, to find funds that can be used to make it through the next year.

Broadnax said the district relies on about $4.3 million a year in “title” funds — congressionally approved funding for programs under certain titles within acts of Congress.

“It poses a problem for a lot of us,” Broadnax said, mentioning a conference he’d recently attended with about 300 other superintendents who were asked what keeps them up at night. “It’s definitely a challenge across the country.”

State Attorney General Nick Brown on Monday announced his office has joined litigation against the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget for the government’s “illegal withholding of $7 billion in formula grants allocated to the states.”

“Student success and wellbeing is a nonpartisan issue,” Brown said. “It’s inexcusable that the federal government would choose to wreak havoc on local school systems like this as they prepare for the upcoming school year. We’re fighting for every dollar our students are owed.”