Schools turning $$ back to feds

As Utah schools ask for more money, they are turning back hundreds of thousands of dollars to the federal government and sitting on $42 million for No Child Left Behind and other programs, state and federal data show.

The state last September failed to spend, and therefore lost, $228,000 in federal funds for schooling refugees, State Office of Education data show. In previous years, it let expire more than $235,000 in charter school start-up funds.

The state also is sitting on $42 million — 9 percent of the federal education dollars coming to the state, a Bush administration report shows — intended for elements of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, widely criticized as being underfunded.

But Utah education officials say the reports are misleading. They have until September 2004 to spend the $42 million. And the money they turned back was so specifically earmarked that they couldn't meet the regulations.

"We don't need to spend all the money immediately . . . and we're going to use every dime," state associate superintendent Ray Timothy said. "We wouldn't be going after those dollars and receiving those dollars unless we intended to use them. The only reason we would send it back is if we have to."

The reports add to controversy over No Child Left Behind.

NCLB requires all students to read and do math on grade level by 2014. It also requires all schools have what it calls highly qualified teachers, among other rules.

But some members of Congress, presidential candidates and teachers unions say the Bush administration hasn't given states enough money to reach those standards. In Utah, Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, is sponsoring a bill to eschew NCLB requirements and the more than $100 million they bring, because of money — budget crunchers are tallying costs — and local control issues.

But the Bush administration questions the outcry.

It reports states are sitting on $5.75 billion in federal education dollars, including those for NCLB. States also failed to spend another $124 million before the funds expired last year, The Associated Press reports.

Republicans on the House Committee on Education & the Workforce cited the reports last week in announcing hikes in No Child Left Behind Title I aid for high-poverty schools.

"We are pumping gas into a flooded engine," committee chairman John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a prepared statement.

Federal funding isn't like having money in the bank. Schools can't get it until after they've spent it.