As Tennessee lawmakers investigate the possibility of just saying no to federal education funds and the ties that come with them, the state’s Federal Funding Working Group co-chair told The Tennessee Star that completely letting go probably isn’t going to happen.
“No, I don’t think that’s feasible,” said State Senator Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) in an interview this week with The Star.
But Lundberg (pictured above) said cutting some funding — and federal mandates — is possible.
“If we discover some onerous regulation or issue we shouldn’t be following, we can submit a waiver and hopefully move away from that,” the co-chair of the nationally watched task force said.
Tennessee received more than $1.1 billion in total federal education funding pre-COVID, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The funding comprised more than 10 percent of Volunteer State education revenue, a bigger chunk than the nationwide average of 7.6 percent.
“I am in favor of looking at any way we can to get out from underneath the grip of the federal government,” said State Representative Justin Lafferty (R-Knoxville). “I’ve been doing this long enough to know that [$1.1 billion) even in a state as flush with cash as we are is still a lot of money.”
Lafferty said it will be interesting to see the task force’s findings when all is said and done.
Republican state legislators across the state in late September praised the creation of the 10-member task force by Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) and Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge). The working group, assembled after Cameron raised the possibility of rejecting federal money, is charged with studying the impact federal funds have on education in the Volunteer State and considering turning down the “strings attached” annual federal funding the U.S. Department of Education provides for K-12 public schools in the state.
Democrat state legislators have called such efforts “misguided.”
Sources familiar with the initiative have told The Star they believe that at least $600 million of the most recent $1.8 billion in annual federal funding is spent on compliance costs with U.S. Department of Education regulations, meaning that the net annual financial benefit to the State of Tennessee is $1.2 billion at most. Several sources said the annual compliance costs may be as high as $900 million, which would mean the net annual financial benefit to the state is only $900 million.
A portion of those compliance costs during the Biden era have been for far-left social engineering policies, including efforts to promote the LGBTQ+ agenda in schools.
Should Tennessee ultimately reject all or part of the annual federal education funds, it would be the first state to do so. But beyond losing the funding sources, cutting those federal ties would likely invite legal challenges related to designated funds for low-income students, students with disabilities, and those in English learner programs, among others.
Lundberg has been clear from the beginning that the task force is about getting answers.
“For me, it’s about answering three questions. What does the money do for us, what do we get for it, and, how much does it cost us?” the senator told The Tennessee Star in September.
He said he’s learning some things as the working group digs into the funding sources.
“I think it raises another question for me. I am, like most people, distrustful of government, and I do not just mean the federal government,” the senator said. “We have to look in the mirror [at the state level]. Are we passing along to our schools onerous regulations?”
The lawmaker said federal block grants may be the way to go, similar to TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program. The savings from that federal-state partnership created during the Trump administration have allowed Tennessee to add additional health services to the program.
“If you give us a block grant, I think we can do better on our own,” Lundberg said. “Give us a block grant for Title I or for child nutrition and let us expend those funds and show the results. These are things we want to talk about and see what we can do.”
Such programs come with fewer federal “strings attached,” giving states and local governments more control over the funds.
The task force held its first public meeting earlier this month.
Lundberg said he doesn’t expect the working group will be completed with its work by early January as scheduled. He said there are a lot of “unknowns,” questions that remain unanswered by the federal government.
U.S. Department of Education officials declined the task force’s request to meet, preferring to answer written questions on technical matters. Lundberg said getting answers from the federal government will likely add more time to the task force’s efforts, arguably underscoring why state lawmakers want to get out from under the weight of the federal bureaucracy.
“This is a much longer process than I would have anticipated,” the senator said. “I suspect this will require more work in what we are doing at the state level … I want to make sure we’re not adding other layers of bureaucracy.”
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Jon Lundberg” by Jon Lundberg.
