Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) announced Friday the Trump administration had agreed to release at least some of the $6 billion in funding meant for after-school and summer programming that it had held.
The freeze of the funds, which also go toward English and adult learner classes and teacher preparation courses, had resulted in rare bipartisan pushback to a Trump policy on education.
In a victory lap after Capito led a Thursday letter with nine other Senate Republicans urging for the funds to be released, the West Virginia senator posted on X that the director for the Office of Budget and Management (OMB) told her the Department of Education is “releasing crucial funds to states that support after school and summer education programs.”
A senior administration official confirmed to The Hill that the funds “will be released to the states.”
“Guardrails have been put in place to ensure these funds are not used in violation of Executive Orders,” the official said.
It was not immediately clear, however, how much of the $6 billion in question will be in play.
The Hill has reached out to OMB for further comment.
The Republican letter signed by Capito, along with Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Mike Rounds (S.D.), John Boozman (Ark.), Katie Britt (Ala.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), John Hoeven (N.D.) and Jim Justice (W.Va.), said the pause in funding would “harm students, families and local economies.”
“This funding goes directly to state and local districts, where local leaders decide how the funding is spent, because as we know, local communities know how to best serve students and families,” the letter reads.
Twenty-four Democratic states had sued over the funding pause, arguing the money should have been distributed on the normal July 1 schedule.
“Congress allocated these funds and the law requires they be delivered. We will not allow this administration to rewrite the rules to punish the communities it doesn’t like,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Kim Evans, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Augusta in Georgia, told The Hill without the funds her clubs would have to reduce their offerings to students.
“We have summer camps rolling right now. I’m depending on a reimbursement in July. … If we don’t get that, we have kids who won’t be served,” Evans said.
OMB had previously said it held the funds to make sure the money aligned with the administration’s agenda.
“This is an ongoing programmatic review of education funding. Initial findings have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda. In one case, NY public schools used English Language Acquisition funds to promote illegal immigrant advocacy organizations. In another, Washington state used funds to direct illegal immigrants towards scholarships intended for American students,” an OMB spokesperson said.
“In yet another, School Improvement funds were used to conduct a seminar on ‘queer resistance in the arts.’ As stated before, this is an ongoing programmatic review and no decisions have been made yet,” the spokesperson added.
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