Trustees of the Little Rock School District last week delayed action on plans for spending $36 million in federal stimulus funds after criticizing the proposal developed by school officials.
District superintendent Linda Watson presented the board with a broad spending plan that included new reading specialists, reduced class sizes, and expanded summer school programs for elementary school students. The district would also buy new buses, repair roofs at three schools, and acquire new classroom technology with the stimulus funds
However, several school trustees said much of the spending could not be sustained after the federal funding runs out.
Trustee Baker Kurrus said the funds should be allocated to improvements of school buildings, with the proposed stimulus efforts instead being financed by the district’s $300 million operating budget.
“We’ve done this upside down,” Kurrus said at the board’s work session. “We need to look at the big picture.”
Heather Gage of the Arkansas Department of Education told trustees that the state would receive a total of $2.9 billion under the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for transportation, human services, and education, with $565 million of the funding allocated to public and charter schools in the state.
Gage said 85% of the state’s federal stimulus funding had to be spent by September 2010 and all of it by December 2011.
