Overview
K-12 schools in Yuma and La Paz counties are missing over $16 million in federal funding, and the timeline for when – or if – those funds will be released remains uncertain.
On Monday, June 30, the U.S. Department of Education notified states via email that it would be withholding nearly $6.9 billion in federal funding for certain program activities under the Every Student Succeeds Act’s provisions. ESSA, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2015, is a reauthorization of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which created title funding.
From these title funds, the Trump administration announced it would be withholding funds for the following:
- Title I-C: Migrant Education
- Title II-A: Supporting Effective Instruction, or professional development
- Title III: English Language Acquisition, or English language learning services
- Title IV-A: Student Support and Academic Enrichment
- Title IV-B: Nita M. Lowey 21st Century Community Learning Centers (21CCLC), or before- and after-school programs
Additionally, the following Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act program funds are being withheld:
- Adult and Basic Literacy Education
- Adult Integrated English and Civics Education
Typically, these funds would’ve been disbursed on July 1, the start of the fiscal year for schools. But the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has stated that they’ve been withheld due to an “ongoing programmatic review.”
No information is yet available on the specifics of this review, but according to an announcement made by a senior OMB official on Friday, July 18, the review is over for 21CCLC programs and their respective funds have been released.
Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne issued a statement sharing he is pleased with the development.
“The after school grants are valuable because they offer students a chance to get additional help with reading, math, completing homework assignments and other tasks that help them academically,” he said. “This is welcome news for these programs that would have been affected by the loss of federal dollars. Once we have formal notification from the federal government and allocations to schools are calculated, we will work very hard to pass these funds through to the recipients.”
Horne added that he believes the rest of the money will be released, too.
“When this review was announced, I urged schools to be calm while the federal government studied these funds to ensure they are being used appropriately,” he said. “I anticipate other funds still being reviewed will be released in the near future.”
In the meanwhile, Arizona has already joined 23 other states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration over the funding freeze. While this action may release the funds before most kids in the U.S. go back to school, it’s already past due for some Arizona schools and it’s close to becoming the same for Yuma and La Paz schools, which resume session as early as Monday, July 28th.
A Broader Perspective: Why Do Title Funds Matter to Arizona?
Rich Nickel, president and CEO of Education Forward Arizona (EFA), a nonpartisan nonprofit devoted to improving Arizona education, commented that distributing funding to schools is the Education Department’s most important function. As such, withholding funds is “the biggest opportunity for disruption to students who need these funds the most in schools who need these funds the most.”
“... All of these title programs are really meant for those that are from low-income situations, often in rural places–and rural Arizona is no exception–and sometimes those who are trying to catch up or need additional supports. So that's really the reason these title programs exist,” Nickel said. “In Arizona, these title programs are 11.9% of the total money that the state actually gets from the Department of Education for K-12 funding, and it's important to note that Arizona is a top ten user of federal funds from the Department of Education as far as states go.
“So our schools and the students who get the services are reliant upon these and getting one day's notice just a few weeks before school starts that these funds may not be distributed or that they're paused is one of the worst case scenarios a school and those students and the parents who rely on these could really imagine.”
EFA’s blog post about the situation notes that title funds have a long history of bipartisan support going as far back as 1965 when they were first signed into law. And Nickel’s observed as much in his career, too.
“I've been in the education finance and, kind of, education programming side of the profession for going on 30+ years,” he said. “And in those 30 plus years, this is the first time I can remember this conversation ever happening.”
Nickel cited the Learning Policy Institute’s estimates for the total hit to Arizona schools: $118 million. That hit isn’t an easy one to overcome when the most recent available figures indicate 36% of the state’s revenue comes from federal funding.
“Arizona has this piggy back budget, if you will, where they count on, as part of the state budget, the federal revenue that's going to appear and, you know, that's all by design,” he said. “So if you take that federal funding–in this case, you know, $120 million of federal funding out of that–there's really only limited options. And much of that is not, really, you know, it's not favorable to the students.
“I mean, you're looking at losing programs, you're looking at losing teachers, you're looking at students and parents losing access to before- and after-school care. So the options aren't great, and frankly, there's just not much revenue that's available to help supplement those.”
When asked about why the state ranks among the top 10 most reliant on federal aid, Nickel explained revenue growth’s been stunted and stalled over the last decade or two.
“A lot of that’s tax policy and there's a lot of other policies that could be argued about, but the bottom line is that because we haven't seen a lot of revenue growth and because we have education funding that has either stalled or in some cases has declined over those couple of decades, what happens is our schools then become more reliant upon federal funding,” he said. “We see the same thing in postsecondary education that because we haven't invested in our community colleges and universities, we've seen this uptick in tuition and the only way for students from low-income families then to really just foundationally be able to answer the affordability puzzle is to use federal funds access through the FAFSA, right? Pell grants and student loans because the state just historically has underinvested in universities, colleges and K-12 over the past couple of decades.”
But What’s the Hit to Yuma and La Paz Counties?
“If the funds are not released, there will be employees losing their jobs, programs will be dropped, school schedules will be adjusted and every school will be affected,” said Yuma County School Superintendent Tom Hurt.
Using fiscal year 2025’s figures, Hurt’s office estimated the countywide impact is about $15.9 million. This figure still includes, however, the 21CCLC funding that will now be released to schools.
The La Paz County School Superintendent’s office has not responded to requests for information made on July 7 and July 9, but using the preliminary allocations available on the Arizona Department of Education's website, KAWC’s rudimentary estimate for the countywide impact is at least $222K. Since La Paz doesn’t receive any 21CCLC funding, that estimate remains intact.
Additionally, available fiscal 2025 figures from the California Department of Education suggest the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe’s schools are missing anywhere from roughly $75K to $7.2 million.
With little information available about when or if funds will be distributed, public and charter schools are largely in the dark about how this will actually impact their operations as the school year begins. Since the funds were already approved as part of Congress’ Continuing Resolution for 2025, schools had planned around having this money like they typically do.
Some districts have begun discussing the issue in their most recent governing board meetings. At Crane Elementary School District’s July meeting, CFO Dale Ponder spoke to how little they know.
“We don't yet have a whole lot of details other than there is a pause,” he said. “While that continues to be evaluated, we've been having some discussions internally on short-term and long-term solutions to what that impact might be. The biggest thing to us is the timeline of when those funds would be released, when that pause might be stopped so that we would be able to expend those resources.”
Gadsden Elementary School District (GESD) Superintendent Lizette Esparza also brought it up during a presentation at the governing board’s retreat on Saturday, July 12.
“We have about $65.7 million that we use to fund the district throughout the school year,” she said. “Out of those $65 million, almost $60 million are coming from grants right now. Currently, as we speak, there is a hold on those federal and state grants.
“Just yesterday we were notified that our migrant funds were on hold and also our Title I, II and III were on hold, and also our 21st Century were on hold. We're supposed to get notice, probably in two weeks, to see what's going, what's going to happen. So out of this $15.9 million, about 20% is currently [what] we can't count on.”
GESD is one of six districts receiving Migrant Education Program money in Yuma County. According to Elizabeth Valenzuela, chief deputy for the Yuma County School Superintendent, the majority of the $15.9 million Yuma County’s schools are missing is migrant education money.
As such, the hit is more significant to GESD as well as the other five districts with migrant programs: Crane Elementary School District, Somerton School District, Yuma Elementary School District One, Yuma Union High School District and PPEP Tec High Schools (San Luis and Somerton learning centers).
Lion's Share of the State: Migrant Education in Yuma County
The bulk of Arizona’s Migrant Education Program is in Yuma County. Based on the most recent migrant student counts provided by ADE, Yuma County has, at minimum, 73% of the state’s total migrant student population.
KAWC’s percentage comes from adding the student counts for Crane, Gadsden, Somerton, Yuma District One and YUHSD in the ADE counts pictured below:
7,422 is 72.7% of the state’s 10,197. But this doesn’t take charter district PPEP Inc. into account. The reason for that is PPEP Inc. has charters in four counties, but if all of its migrant students were to belong to the PPEP TEC High School - Cesar Chavez Learning Center in San Luis and the PPEP TEC High School - Jose Yepez Learning Center in Somerton, that figure comes up to 77.6%.
Regardless of percentages, Migrant Education at PPEP’s Somerton and San Luis learning centers is a critical program according to Superintendent Wayne Tucker.
“For us, the most alarming aspect of this potential rescission is the potential damage to the Migrant Education Program,” he said. “That's a really powerful program that has helped so many students get their high school diplomas, go on to college, and the idea that we might just sort of throw that away because of some sort of political agenda is really heartbreaking and terrifying.”
Prior to his interview with KAWC, Tucker shared an NBC News feature from 2020 about child migrant fieldworkers. The piece spotlighted a pair of sisters who were attending PPEP TEC High School with the help of the Migrant Education Program.
In order to better understand what the program accomplishes for migrant students, Tucker recommends viewing the video first:
"For me, the most frustrating aspect of this entire situation is that it just doesn't make sense,” Tucker said. “The Migrant Education Program is an extremely effective program. It has helped thousands of students in the Yuma area, and it is exactly the kind of thing we should be spending taxpayer funds on. Thousands of students from the Yuma area have their high school diplomas and, in many cases, their college degrees because of the work the Migrant Education Program did for them to provide them supports, to provide them flexibility to be able to go to school.
“Why would you mess with that? So if it goes back to Congress and there is a vote on rescission, I think a ‘yes’ vote will be very, very difficult for a lot of politicians to justify to their local constituents.”
Tucker shared that PPEP hasn’t had to cut anything yet since its programs still run on existing funds, but “we're concerned about the migrant program because that's funded under Title I-C and that is one of the programs that is being threatened here. So down the road, we could encounter real problems with costs that we're committing to for materials, for activities, and also just for positions for the people who are responsible to deliver the services to these students.”
Since the Education Department’s announcement on June 30, school administrators have been meeting to discuss what comes next. Tucker’s interview came a day after he met with peers in Cochise County so he shared his impressions on what educators are feeling.
“I don't want to necessarily speak for any other schools about what programs they might have lost or anticipate losing, but I have talked to other school leaders and I hear from them a lot of anxiety and desire to move some things around, to be able to make sure that they don't lose programs by moving them to other funding sources, which means that the projects they had in mind for those other funding sources, maybe those have to be shelved or something like that,” he said.
“It's very, very complex and creates an enormous amount of anxiety,” Tucker continued. “I think people don't realize that running a school or a charter or a school district is like playing an enormous game of Jenga, and we're all trying to play it and now this toddler who kind of wanders into the room and starts pulling out pieces that we need to have in place—It's really set the fox amongst the chickens here.
“And I think that at the moment, a lot of people are really suffering with questions and not knowing what they're going to do, and I think that means a lot of people are going to have to forego projects they might ultimately have started or not hire people who would have otherwise been hired for positions to engage in projects. It’s a real mess.”
‘Is It Legal?’ A Federal K-12 Policy Expert Weighs In
“This is one of the questions that folks have been asking, and not just people who aren't familiar with the budget process; it's actually a question that folks who are appropriations experts have been digging into,” said Julia Martin, esq.
Martin is director of policy and government affairs for the Bruman Group, PLLC, a firm which is nationally recognized for its federal grants management and education practice.
As Martin explained, education funding typically goes out in two “chunks.” Once on July 1st to help carry districts over through the summer and get started for the new school year, and the other on Oct. 1st to cover the remainder of the year.
“But those dates aren't mandated in statute; they're just traditional,” she said. “So the Department of Education is not obligated to give them the money on that date, and of course, when you are a state and a school district that's been getting money on July 1st for the better part of 30 or 40 years, you don't really consider the possibility that that money that's been appropriated by Congress is not going to come out on this date. So all of these school districts budgeted assuming that they would get some money—maybe not the full amount that they got last year, but a significant portion of it.”
Martin explained that the administration has the ability to temporarily withhold some funds for reasons such as logistics or regulation needs.
“But that can't go on forever, and at some point, they're supposed to either request that funds be rescinded, which is Congress undoing an appropriation, or they're potentially in violation of something called the Impoundment Control Act which says Congress has the power of the purse and the agencies have to spend the money they're instructed to spend,” she said. “The twist here is that it's the Office of Management and Budget—not the Department of Education—which has reportedly made this move to withhold funding.”
Martin confirmed that programmatic reviews can happen if the Education Department believes a grantee, state, district or other entity receiving federal funds has broken the rules or might break them.
“They can do a review and ensure that the requirements of that program are being met, but again, we don't have any states or districts that we know of that are experiencing any kind of investigative process,” she said. “They've simply been told that these funds might be going to something that is contrary to the administration's priorities and ‘Therefore, we're going to hold onto them.’ So in theory, the administration can hold onto funds for some period of time. But the tricky thing here is schools don't know when they're going to get funds, how much of those funds they’re going to get or if they're going to get them at all—and that just makes it impossible for principals to plan.”
The funds in question were previously approved by Congress and carried over into the continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in March 2025. But there may be slight wiggle room there, too.
Martin explained that the continuing resolution is essentially a copy and paste of prior funding levels.
“So when Congress passed the full-year CR in March, what they did was they said, ‘We're just going to do what we did in the last fiscal year, which was fiscal year '24,’” she said. “But when they passed fiscal year '24, they left out some numbers. For some programs that can happen either because they haven't been decided yet or someone leaves them out in a drafting error at the last minute … So what they do to correct that is they put in place instructions or an explanatory statement or a report that helps administrative agencies figure out what they meant, where they didn't say it explicitly in the legislation.
“The problem is that when this Congress passed the fiscal year '25 CR and copied and pasted from last year, they did not copy and paste that explanatory statement and they didn't add their own instructions. So that leaves a number of programs without specific instructions for how much money should be allocated out of that broader spending category, and it arguably maybe gives the administration some wiggle room to make its own decisions.”
When asked whether that might further account for the funding freeze, Martin said it doesn’t because “some of the funds that are being withheld are those funds that didn't get a specified program level appropriation in this last CR, but some of them did get the specified appropriation.”
Martin recommended the Committee for Education Funding as a resource. CEF's letter to Congress sent July 2nd provides more detail about appropriations.
These programs are largely formula funding programs, meaning that there are formulas in place that indicate how much money goes where.
“So the administration doesn't get to pick and choose where funds go,” Martin explained. “The only way that funds can be withheld is if there is some fundamental portion of the law or the program that that state or district just hasn't done and that can be something like refusing to provide the testing data that they gather from their schools or refusing to serve the students that they said they were going to serve.
“And the reason that I'm using that word ‘refusing’ is because by the time you get to the idea of withholding a whole grant, in most cases, there's been an investigative process and there's been an effort to get a grantee in line with the program. We really don't see in normal circumstances a federal agency jump right to withholding programmatic funds, and so that in itself is really unusual.”
Martin noted that neither the districts nor the states even know what the administration believes they’ve done wrong.
“We've seen some examples that OMB has named, but none of those examples are necessarily contrary to the provisions in the programs,” she added. “There are specific examples that might relate to one or two districts, but they're certainly not illegal as far as we can tell, and they are not statewide. So the information that we've been given doesn't quite line up with that kind of withholding.”
While little specificity is available about what prompted the programmatic review, the funding freeze aligns in some ways with the Trump administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2026.
Specifically, the fiscal 2026 budget request proposes:
- Zero funding for Supporting Effective Instruction state grants – Page 13
- Zero funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers – Page 14
- Zero funding for Student Support and Academic Enrichment – Page 16
- Eliminating Migrant Education state grants – Page 19
- Zero funding for English Language Acquisition – Page 21
- Zero funding for Adult Education grants – Page 30
According to the request, funding for Supporting Effective Instruction, 21CCLCs and Student Support and Academic Enrichment would become part of a consolidated K-12 Simplified Funding Program for which a total of $2 billion would be allocated. States would determine funding for their own English Language and adult education programs.
“If you look at the scope of the programs that are being withheld, the administration is trying to accomplish some of its spending priorities or some of its spending requests to Congress without going through Congress at all,” Martin commented. “When the administration sends this spending request, it’s a presidential budget request or a budget justification to Congress, it really is just a request.
“Congress holds the power of the purse and they take that really seriously. So when the administration goes ahead and withholds funds that they've told Congress they don't need in the next year, that does seem to be taking on some of that power of the purse that we would expect Congress to guard pretty closely.”
The Bottom Line
As various Yuma and La Paz school districts have expressed, they will need to monitor the situation closely. 21CCLC funds have been released and Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne expects the other withheld funds will soon follow.
But as Trump’s FY 2026 discretionary budget request indicates plans to eliminate the Migrant Education Program and consolidate funding for other programs, there may be plenty of change ahead for public and charter schools regardless of when or if today’s withheld funds are released.
This reporting is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
