From the Desk of the Chief Business Officer: COVID Relief Funding & How OUSD is Spending It Oakland Unified School District • about 9 hours ago • Saturday, Oct 9 at 11:08 AM • Oakland Unified School District, Media Contacts 
Saturday, October 9, 2021
Dear Oakland Unified Community,
I reach out today because as we have been working through the pandemic over the past year and a half, a big part of what has gotten us to this point is the COVID funding we’ve received from the state and the federal government. It’s a complex financial investment in OUSD that totals $283.1 million in one-time restricted dollars. Unfortunately, there has been some misunderstanding of what the money can and has been used for, and even some misinformation spreading in parts of our community about how we are managing it. I want to make clear today how carefully we have listened, planned, applied, and managed the money, where it has gone so far, how much is left, and how we, as a community focused on improving outcomes, plan to spend the rest moving forward.
While $283.1 million is $17 million less than the rumored $300M, by any measure, it’s a lot of money. But, in a school district of our size with the ongoing complexities related to COVID-19, it’s not as much as it might seem, especially spread over a four year period.
Through a combination of twelve different funding sources, OUSD has been allocated the $283.1 million dollars of state and federal COVID-19 Relief funds for expenditure from March 2020 through September 2024. While these funds have different spending deadlines, as I mentioned, they are all restricted one-time funds, meaning they are restricted in use and cannot be used to fund ongoing costs, such as employee pay raises.
For last year (2020-21), we spent $65.3 million largely to provide the best remote learning opportunities possible while also providing student and family meals across the District. We trained and paid employees working in new roles, created safe environments for those still working/learning in our facilities, and placed needed technology into the hands of thousands of students and educators alike.
As Spring 2021 approached, we were able to plan a brief spring reopening and also plan more thoughtfully for this school year (2021-22) and the years to come. Given the amount and duration of funds, we aligned our planning for COVID spending with our overall planning reflected in our Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP).
As you can see in the table above, over this year and through the next two school years, we are planning to spend $91M on Academic Supports, with a focus on literacy, independent study, credit recovery, and afterschool programming among other things; $14.2M will go to COVID Health and Safety including testing, safety lead stipends, custodial safety teams, PPE, etc.; $44.3M is going to Engagement and Mental Health with a focus on parent teacher home visits, community positions at every site, increased mental health support, etc.; and $42.5M will pay for Maintaining Staff/Operations which include teaching positions, transportation, nutrition services and reopening support among many other things. That adds up to $192M. All of these expenditures were planned and reviewed by staff and the community, and endorsed by the Board of Education.
From last May through today, we have had to adapt to a changing reality. The rise of the Delta variant has meant more resources needed for testing, outdoor learning/eating, air purification and other safety measures. Hiring for 500+ new positions including 8 assistant principals, nearly 16 teachers on special assignment, 5 ½ teachers, 17 STIP substitutes, 11 ½ support staff members, nearly 11 nutrition services staffers, and many more, has been slow, requiring more resources and flexibility in how we reach our goals. Also, our May estimates are being refined as we begin critical work, such as our work on Black Reparations. Adjusted for these investments, the $98 million for this school year originally estimated in spring, has grown to $100.7M and is now estimated to increase by another $11.6M to $112.3M. That’s an additional $14.3M, which you can add to $192M to get $206.3M, plus $65.3M from 2020-21, and you get $271.6M, leaving just over $11M remaining for this year and the next two years.
Looking at it from a different angle, as we continue to respond to an evolving reality, we must consider the impact of today’s decisions on tomorrow’s capabilities. With $65.3M spent in 2020-21 and $112.3 in process for 2021-22, there will be a total of $105.5M remaining, and that has to cover all of our added COVID expenses for the next two years, 2022-23 and 2023-24. We have already planned spending of $94M ($52.6M + $41.4M) in those years, primarily to continue our academic supports, engagement and mental health efforts. That leaves just over $11M to cover anything else that might arise or simply an under-estimation of costs. We have strategically planned to spend the majority of the money, but it has not all been spent.
Moving forward, it is likely that any decision to spend significant COVID funds on new items would displace some of the planned spending in 2022-23 and/or 2023-24. We are already discussing how we might need to increase funds available in future years to address safety concerns given the realities of Delta this year and potential future variants, vaccine or testing requirements. We will continue to seek input and provide information in developing our budget for 2022-23 for which COVID funds are likely less than 10% of the total budget.
The upshot of all this is that opening our schools in a pandemic has been extremely expensive, and the overwhelming majority of the money has gone and will go to pay the people who do the critical work of the District. Likewise, you can see we are not sitting on some big pot of money with no way to spend it, as nearly all the $283M is already spent or committed to be spent over this year and the next two school years.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of how the District is managing the state and federal COVID dollars, and that it reminds you that we aren’t spending any of the money without strict oversight and accountability throughout the organization.
In community,
Lisa Grant-Dawson
OUSD Chief Business Officer