It’s crunch time for the federal fiscal year 2025 budget. Congress kicked-the-can last year and set a deadline of March 14 to complete 2025 appropriations. School districts across the county are now building their budget for the next school year, 2025-26, and trying to guess what they will receive. It’s always a speculative process, but this year is incredibly challenging.
The challenge isn’t with the Trump administration. It’s acted predictably, so far (at least concerning education).
The challenge is with 2025 funding levels. Even through mid-February, the consensus was that the FY2025 funding levels would be about the same as last year, give or take some grants. The flagship investments, Title I of the Every Students Succeeds Act (ESSA) and IDEA (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), wouldn’t change all that much or at least not until the next federal fiscal budget cycle starting this spring.
This was the assumption that school leaders across the county have used to build their 2025-26 school year budgets, and it seemed like a fair bet that something resembling regular federal budget governance would prevail.
That assumption lost some confidence this week. The House Budget Committee finally set topline funding levels for the specific subcommittee to work with. The Committee on Education and Workforce was assigned to cut $330 billion over ten fiscal years, from 2025 through 2034. In a follow-up hearing, Republicans in the House Appropriations subcommittee called for a significant spending pause to assess how the funds are being used and whether they are necessary. “Congress has opened its credit card and efforts are not improving the outcomes,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL). Democrats pointed out the harm of significant cuts and said that reduction would likely force local communities to pay more. Lost in the conversation is the fact—the legal requirement—that federal funds are supplemental dollars, meaning that they support the work of state and local investments, and may not replace or supplant that effort.
The “pause” has school leaders worried. What can they rely on for the next school year and why should they bear the burden of months of congressional inaction? There isn’t a clear answer to this. Hopefully it will be resolved by March 14. Local school officials, however, don’t have the luxury of delaying their processes. They are responsible to the public and are, as required, developing their budgets with the best information available and presenting to the public for an open discussion on their investment strategies and how they are serving their students and parents.
This is challenging work that school board officials do every year, but it just got harder this year.
