Page 40 - The Edge Back to School 2022

SUMMER CONFERENCE AND EXPO

BY DON HARRIS
David Akers Nancy Burns
How to Apply for and Spend Covid Relief Funds

Arizona was awarded $2.5 billion in federal Covid said. “Superintendents and school boards want to
relief funds for K-12 schools, but for some it may know how they’re doing.”
have been unclear how to apply for, receive and
spend some of the money. The influx of money came with a lot of questions,
mainly: what can the money be spent on?
With a goal of simplifying the complex federal Because the states are different and have their
funding landscape for buyers and vendors, David own standards, the federal government provided
Akers, Executive Vice President of Marketing some flexibility, according to Akers. Instead of
and Supplier Engagement for Equalis Group, and listing more than 117,000 specific approved uses,
Nancy Burns, Regional Director, Equalis Group, the feds cited examples and numerous pages of
conducted an information-packed breakout guidelines.
session at AASBO’s Summer Conference and
Expo. Equalis Group is a cooperative purchasing Five broad categories – bucket types of
organization based in Texas and Ohio. expenditures – listed on the Equalis website are:
Maintenance, Repairs and Operations Supplies;
The presentation focused on ESSER (Elementary Planning and Operations; Mental Health;
and Secondary School Emergency Relief) funds Facilities; and Learning Loss, Education and
– three coronavirus-related stimulus bills enacted Training.
by Congress in 2020 and 2021.
In Arizona, you have to justify the use of the
“It was fascinating to me,” Akers said, “that money before it can be spent. Akers cited a
procurement folks, end buyers, nationally had popular justification: “It should in some way
no idea how any of this works. Zero. The money either be preventing, preparing for responding to
is already there. It might be held by the state Covid 19 and the broadening impacts of Covid
Department of Education.” 19. That’s the way to go. That’s the advice we got
from other sources.”
Specifics on how to apply are detailed on the
Equlia website, but he recommended against The federal intention was not to require schools
reading the legislation. It’s thousands of pages to purchase a certain item, but to allow them to
long and not well formatted, he said. Vendors are determine how to address their critical needs,
able to see how much money went to each school Akers explained. “The downside is that there is
district, and districts can learn how they compare a lot of gray,” he said, “which means things are
to their peers around the state, Akers said. up for interpretation. So, what works in other
states might not work in Arizona because a lot of
“Are they ahead of you or behind you?” Akers decisions are being made at the state level.”
CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

|
40 THE EDGE BACK TO SCHOOL 2022