Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) fears the Trump administration’s multi-billion dollar education funding freeze could cause schools in her state to close as districts struggle to keep employees without the money.
The administration originally froze a total of $6 billion in funding to schools, affecting after-school and summer programs, along with classes for adult and English learners.
Last week, the president released around $1 billion that was aimed at after-school programs, but $5 billion is still held up.
“Many of our school districts have already made really hard decisions about closing schools,” Murkowski told ABC News.
“Both in Fairbanks and Anchorage, we’ve seen layoffs,” she continued.
“If your literacy skills are weak, if you’re working on your English skills, I mean, these are all things that are keeping people out of the workforce at a time when we’re trying to get people into it,” Murkowski added. “So I am very worried.”
She was one of nine Republicans to sign a letter to the Office of Management and Budget last week demanding the funding be released and rejecting the administration’s claim that the money is going towards “woke” programs.
The letter prompted the office to release the around $1 billion in funding for after-school and summer programming, prompting a sigh of relief for parents. But the rest of the money is still in limbo with no timeline on when it will be given to schools.
“I’d like to see some of the other programs released, but, you know, we haven’t heard one way or the other,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who led the Republican letter, told ABC.
While Murkowski is hesitant to say the money is cut, she stresses the funding needs to be released before the school year begins.
“I don’t want to call it cuts yet, because my hope is that they’re just unpaused and that they are going to materialize,” Murkowski told ABC News.
