ODESSA, Texas — Dr. Scott Muri provided a legislative update on financial topics to the ECISD Board of Trustees.
Muri says the Texas Education Commissioner decided recently to allow school districts to be held-harmless for enrollment and attendance drops because of the pandemic.
ECISD will now not lose funding from the 2,000 students that were missing from last year to this year. ECISD is looking at receive $8.5 million with some stipulations attached to it.
Muri says that the CARES Act money really benefitted the district and that they were given money directly from the state on top of nearly $1 million combined from the City of Odessa and Ector County.
With the next rounds of the CARES Act approved, ECISD can be in line to receive $25 million for education and another $75 million earmarked.
Muri says that despite this money being designated for student's learning loss over the next few years, the state is still figuring out how to distribute the money to these school districts.
There is a chance this money is supplanting from regular school funding to regular funding for the State of Texas.
Muri talked with a congressional committee over spring break about this issue and will travel to Austin next week to discuss how federal money earmarked for schools should go directly to these districts and not be supplanted.
