Guadalupe County to support local schools by providing CARES ACT dollars

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today

Cindy Aguirre

(Seguin) – Guadalupe County is doing its part to ease the financial strain of keeping students safe in area schools. The Guadalupe County Commissioners Court recently approved CARES ACT funds up to $200,000 for each school district in hopes of supplementing expenses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says the county received funds pursuant to the CARES Act for use in defraying costs associated with keeping safe. Kutscher says over the last several months, he realized that like all county operations, Guadalupe County schools also observed additional expenses especially in its efforts to reopen its school doors this August and September.

“Looking at that and we are talking about a million dollars on the county side with what we’ve expended and any potential overages throughout the end of the year. We’ve got $875,000 that are sitting there and will have to be expended to have access to the $625,000 under the 25 percent. I know that’s a lot but if we’re talking about the major school districts, the SCUC ISD, Marion, Seguin ISD and Navarro, you are talking about $200,000 per school district if you do it evenly and then having a portion to fund any private schools that have only asked for a couple of thousand dollars but may have the need for some additional funding but I go back to the need of the schools. You are talking about almost 25,000 students within the county, in the community that have had to really up the environment to try to protect kids, to try get kids back in school but also provide distance learning, keep families safe, provide meals throughout this time. I mean there are so many ongoing needs and expenses that go along with that. We had the ability as the county to say we are going to close the buildings and not let the public in during this time so we can still provide you service. The school districts – they said you have to take these kids back or at least that’s what a lot of the community wanted and it’s like, okay now you have to change the environment to make all these things safe for the kids,” said Kutscher.

The private/charter schools that will also be eligible for the funding include St. James Catholic School, Southwest Prepatory, Lifegate Christian School and Seguin Christian Academy.

Kutscher says in many cases, the Texas Education Agency will also be providing matching dollars to those school districts receiving this grant funding from the county and again, says the amount is to be used for reimbursement of COVID-19 expenses only.

“My recommendation would be to fund the public schools at $200,000 each and the four private schools of $18,000 each – that would come up at $72,000. That falls within our $875,000. It’s just even and a round number. It leaves us with a little bit of the buffer with any overages that county departments may need still to the tune of a couple of hundred thousand dollars and gives us access to the $625,000 within the 25 percent. I know that’s a lot of back and forth and all that but again, we will still have to come back and do interlocal agreements with the stipulations for the school districts and the commissioners court and if any of that changes where they can’t take that — don’t need it, don’t want to – that changes everything but this lays the foundation for us to move forward in a pretty clean and even way,” said Kutscher.

County officials say the grant funding will only be allowed for the sole purposes of medical expenses, public health and “payroll expenses for public safety, public health, health care, human services and similar employees who services are substantially dedicated to mitigating or responding to the COVID-19 public health emergency.”

The city of Seguin, last month, also adopted a similar resolution allocating federal funds under the CARES Act to the Seguin ISD in the amount of $59,050. At the time, school officials stated that these dollars would go to support the purchase of additional laptops and hotspots to better support remote learning. Due to the city’s action, the Seguin ISD will also be receiving matching dollars for a total of $120,000.

Read on SeguinToday.comhttps://seguintoday.com/2020/10/06/guadalupe-county-to-support-local-schools-by-providing-cares-act-dollars/