NY Attorney General Letitia James, multistate coalition sue feds for blocking access to education funds for states
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the U.S. Department of Education grants funded education-related programs that "provide essential resources to help schools and students recover from the lasting impacts of the pandemic." Credit: Newsday / John Paraskevas
New York has launched a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming a March 28 decision by the U.S. Department of Education to "abruptly and arbitrarily" cut access to more than a billion dollars in previously approved COVID-19 pandemic relief funds has created "chaos" for state education departments nationwide.
The Education Department previously said access to those funds — designed to support low-income and unhoused students, as well as address long-term effects on K-12 students as a result of the pandemic — was approved for state use through March 2026.
But in a March 28 letter to state education chiefs, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said because federal award recipients failed to use the funds within a reasonable time frame from the original September mandate date, the 2026 deadline was rescinded and the allocations would be forfeited as of 5 p.m. Eastern time that day, noting: "You were entitled to the full award only if you liquidated all financial obligations within 120 days of the end of the period of performance. You failed to do so."
The suit alleges the deadline cited by McMahon was "three minutes before" the letter was actually sent via email — noting that was at 5:03 p.m., making it impossible for state officials to even address the issue.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday by New York Attorney General Letitia James in coalition with 15 other attorneys general and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, alleges the "sudden change in position and arbitrary termination to states’ access to these funds has created a massive budget gap for state education departments and local school districts."
In an emailed statement on Friday, U.S. Department of Education Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann said: "COVID is over. States and school districts can no longer claim they are spending their emergency pandemic funds on ‘COVID relief’ when there are numerous documented examples of abuse and misuse.
"The Department established a process to consider funding extension requests on a project-specific basis where it can be demonstrated that funds are being used to directly mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on student learning. If the states suing were using these funds to remediate learning loss and support students, there would be no need for this lawsuit."
New York was originally allocated $9.3 billion in emergency pandemic "education stabilization" funding in 2021, according to the lawsuit, but still had not used about $134 million of those funds as of March 28.
In a statement announcing the suit, James said grants, part of the American Rescue Plan Act, funded three "education-related programs" — Homeless Children and Youth (HCY); Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER); and Emergency Assistance to Nonpublic Schools (EANS) — that "provide essential resources to help schools and students recover from the lasting impacts of the pandemic."
In New York, James said, the latter two programs support what her office termed "critical repairs and improvements to school buildings," including construction of additional space, as well as toward the purchase of library books, playground equipment and wheelchair-accessible buses.
And, James said, schools statewide rely on HCY grants to "provide food, personal care items, classroom supplies, field trip funding, and specialized training for teachers who work with unhoused students."
"The Trump administration’s latest attack on our schools will hurt our most vulnerable students and make it harder for them to thrive," James said in the statement, adding: "Cutting school systems’ access to vital resources that our students and teachers rely on is outrageous and illegal."
Joining New York and Pennsylvania in the suit, which names both the Department of Education and McMahon as defendants, are the attorneys general from Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and the District of Columbia.
New York has launched a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming a March 28 decision by the U.S. Department of Education to "abruptly and arbitrarily" cut access to more than a billion dollars in previously approved COVID-19 pandemic relief funds has created "chaos" for state education departments nationwide.
The Education Department previously said access to those funds — designed to support low-income and unhoused students, as well as address long-term effects on K-12 students as a result of the pandemic — was approved for state use through March 2026.
But in a March 28 letter to state education chiefs, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said because federal award recipients failed to use the funds within a reasonable time frame from the original September mandate date, the 2026 deadline was rescinded and the allocations would be forfeited as of 5 p.m. Eastern time that day, noting: "You were entitled to the full award only if you liquidated all financial obligations within 120 days of the end of the period of performance. You failed to do so."
The suit alleges the deadline cited by McMahon was "three minutes before" the letter was actually sent via email — noting that was at 5:03 p.m., making it impossible for state officials to even address the issue.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday by New York Attorney General Letitia James in coalition with 15 other attorneys general and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, alleges the "sudden change in position and arbitrary termination to states’ access to these funds has created a massive budget gap for state education departments and local school districts."
In an emailed statement on Friday, U.S. Department of Education Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications Madi Biedermann said: "COVID is over. States and school districts can no longer claim they are spending their emergency pandemic funds on ‘COVID relief’ when there are numerous documented examples of abuse and misuse.
"The Department established a process to consider funding extension requests on a project-specific basis where it can be demonstrated that funds are being used to directly mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on student learning. If the states suing were using these funds to remediate learning loss and support students, there would be no need for this lawsuit."
New York was originally allocated $9.3 billion in emergency pandemic "education stabilization" funding in 2021, according to the lawsuit, but still had not used about $134 million of those funds as of March 28.
In a statement announcing the suit, James said grants, part of the American Rescue Plan Act, funded three "education-related programs" — Homeless Children and Youth (HCY); Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER); and Emergency Assistance to Nonpublic Schools (EANS) — that "provide essential resources to help schools and students recover from the lasting impacts of the pandemic."
In New York, James said, the latter two programs support what her office termed "critical repairs and improvements to school buildings," including construction of additional space, as well as toward the purchase of library books, playground equipment and wheelchair-accessible buses.
And, James said, schools statewide rely on HCY grants to "provide food, personal care items, classroom supplies, field trip funding, and specialized training for teachers who work with unhoused students."
"The Trump administration’s latest attack on our schools will hurt our most vulnerable students and make it harder for them to thrive," James said in the statement, adding: "Cutting school systems’ access to vital resources that our students and teachers rely on is outrageous and illegal."
Joining New York and Pennsylvania in the suit, which names both the Department of Education and McMahon as defendants, are the attorneys general from Arizona, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and the District of Columbia.
John Valenti, a reporter at Newsday since 1981, has been honored nationally by the Associated Press and Society of the Silurians for investigative, enterprise and breaking news reporting, as well as column writing, and is the author of “Swee'pea,” a book about former New York playground basketball star Lloyd Daniels. Valenti is featured in the Emmy Award-winning ESPN 30-for-30 film “Big Shot.”
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