WASHINGTON — The Trump administration wants to overhaul the U.S. census to exclude noncitizens who don’t have a green card from the country’s next population count in 2030, according to a Wednesday notice in the Federal Register. 

The document, which will officially be published Thursday, could mean major changes for how millions in federal funding is allocated to states, as well as affect the population numbers for determining the number of U.S. House members in each state. The House is made up of 435 lawmakers apportioned among congressional districts in the 50 states.

The move is likely to face legal challenges, as the changes run counter to the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment that directs representatives in Congress to be appointed based on the “whole number of persons in each State,” excluding Native Americans “not taxed.” 

The amendment language does not specify immigration status. The states handled immigration enforcement until the federal government took over in 1882 with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act. 

The proposed changes would exclude any noncitizens who do not have lawful permanent residence, or a green card, which could result in millions being excluded from the population count. That would include immigrants in the country without legal authorization, those with some form of temporary legal status, refugees and asylum seekers. 

The unauthorized immigrant population — that includes noncitizens who have some form of limited legal status — has grown to more than 15.8 million since mid-2024.

The Trump administration argues that noncitizens who are not green card holders should be kept out of the census count because “they are not true inhabitants, members of the body politic, or persons with a ‘usual residence’ in the United States due to their lack of a sufficient tie and allegiance to the United States,” according to the document. 

The proposal also calls for removing several questions pertaining to sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and suggests adding a question relating to citizenship, which President Donald Trump has pushed to include since his first term. But the Supreme Court in 2019 kept the question off the 2020 census. 

The Trump administration wants those demographic questions removed from the census because the survey “should be colorblind and should not be distorted in any way by questions about immaterial personal characteristics, such as race,” the proposal says.

The census has collected information about race and ethnicity since 1790, the first survey count in the U.S.

Public comment will last for 30 days after the document is officially published Thursday.

Districts transport students with disabilities every day under an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The cost recovery opportunities that supports those rides sit in several places at once: school-based Medicaid, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), state categorical aid and grant programs. Knowing which dollars apply, and holding the documentation to claim them, is where most operations lose ground.

In September 2026, Zonar and School Transportation News (STN) surveyed transportation professionals across the U.S. about how their districts fund and document specialized transportation.

Join Zonar and a panel of experts for an open conversation about where the money comes from, what districts document today and what gets missed along the way. Get direct insights from the perspective of consultants, district leaders and the staff who handle claiming.

What we’ll cover:

• Where cost recovery for transporting students with disabilities comes from, and which sources districts already use
• How school-based Medicaid reimbursement works for specialized transportation, from eligibility through the claim
• Why documentation is where most claims break down, and what a defensible ridership record looks like
• How one Florida district handles Medicaid claiming today, including the manual matching behind every submission
• Where the survey data shows the widest gap between cost recovery options that are available and funding claimed
• Practical next steps for transportation and special education leaders heading into the rest of the 2026-2027 school year
• How ridership tracking makes applying for cost recovery easier and more reliable.

 

Brought to you by Zonar

REGISTER BELOW:

 

Featured speakers:

Rachel Trindade
Chief Marketing Officer
Zonar

With more than 25 years in marketing and 15+ years in logistics, Rachel has helped companies drive significant growth faster than industry norms. At Zonar, she leads marketing and demand generation.

Before joining Zonar, Rachel served as CMO at FlavorCloud and Extensiv, and led global marketing at Teletrac Navman (Vontier) across four continents. She holds a BBA from the University of Texas at Austin and has been recognized as a leading Woman in Supply Chain by Supply & Demand Chain Executive and named California’s Most Visionary Tech CMO by CEO Monthly.

 

Tim Ammon
Owner
Ammon Consulting Group

Tim Ammon has spent more than 25 years supporting transportation and fleet operations, working with more than 500 organizations across three countries. His work focuses on identifying opportunities to improve operational performance through process improvements, technology adoption, and personnel practices, consistently helping organizations bridge the gap between desired and actual performance.

Tim has also provided extensive professional development services in leadership and management, decision-making, organizational resilience, and cost and technical analysis. He holds a Master of Public Administration from American University and certifications in School Risk Management, Operational Risk Management, and Change Management.

 

Karen Thomas
Medicaid Coordinator
Leon County Schools

Karen Thomas handles Medicaid claiming for Leon County Schools in Tallahassee, Florida, where she manages the documentation behind every reimbursement the district submits for transporting students with disabilities. Her work covers pulling the daily records, matching each ride to the correct route and the correct student, then compiling the full file for submission.

She brings a ground-level view of what it takes to get funding for transporting students with disabilities, along with the tools and tricks that make her job easier.

The post (Free Webinar) The Cost Recovery Behind Transporting Students with Disabilities appeared first on School Transportation News.

Gov. Tony Evers is taking his final back-to-school tour of the state, visiting K-12 classrooms across Wisconsin to meet students, families and staff and tout his record as the “Education Governor.”

If you don’t happen to live in one of the 72 Wisconsin school districts that went to referendum last spring, begging local property taxpayers to cover basic costs the state is not meeting, you might get the impression from Evers’ valedictory tour that he is leaving office having solved the urgent problem of chronic underfunding of Wisconsin schools. 

“After a decade of disinvestment, Gov. Evers has spent the last almost eight years working to invest in public education at every level,” a statement released this week by the governor’s office declares. “During his time in office, Gov. Evers has enacted budgets to restore two-thirds funding for public schools for the first time in over two decades, provide the largest special education aid increase in state history, and bring per pupil aid to its highest level ever.”

Sounds like a strong record of accomplishment!

But wait, why does a lawsuit filed this year by the Wisconsin PTA, students, parents, teachers and communities across the state charge that Wisconsin “has seemingly abandoned its commitment to the education of Wisconsin’s public school children” and is violating its own constitution by failing to adequately fund public schools? 

The short answer is that Evers, along with the Republican legislative leaders who are the targets of the lawsuit, are using misleading language to pass off austerity for schools as generosity.

Take Evers’ claim about restoring the state’s long-abandoned commitment to two-thirds funding for schools. That two-thirds number is based on counting money in the state budget that schools are not allowed to spend. While the money is technically allocated for education, the state did not lift school revenue caps, so it can only be spent for property-tax relief. 

“Meeting the state’s two-thirds funding commitment doesn’t put a single new pencil in a classroom when you provide zero dollars in new spending,” explains Heather DuBois Bourenane of the Wisconsin Public Education Network, “and the current budget provided zero dollars in new spendable aid for both years of this biennium.”

Far from reaping a historic investment, students and teachers are starting the year in Wisconsin with no new money for schools. 

The state’s share of special education funding, which fell from a high of 70% in the 1970s to hover around 30% in recent years, did get a bump in the last budget, reversing a dire drop-off. But the “largest special education increase in state history” only amounted to a jump from 30 to 35% last year — considerably less than the 42% reimbursement rate state officials originally projected. 

Finally, in a sense, Evers did bring per-pupil aid to its highest level ever, but like his other claims, this is more a rhetorical victory than a concrete benefit to schools. Using his line-item veto, Evers extended school districts’ ability to raise $325 in revenue per pupil from local taxpayers for the next 400 years. This move infuriated Republicans, and they used it as a reason for not giving schools any new money in the current budget. But the $325 per pupil increase is not hard cash, it’s just revenue-raising authority granted to districts, which are allowed to raise property taxes by that amount if they choose to. Some, having exhausted the good will of local taxpayers with repeated referendum asks, have not done so. 

All in all, schools in Wisconsin are in bad financial shape, and property taxpayers are weary of filling the gap left by the state abandoning its obligation to kids. 

“The Legislature is selling kids short,” says Jeff Mandell of Law Forward, which is representing the plaintiffs in the school funding lawsuit. The Wisconsin Constitution guarantees every child an equal opportunity for a sound, basic education. But for years, the plaintiffs argue, the state has been breaking that promise.

Adams-Friendship school district, one of the parties in the lawsuit, used to have five elementary schools within its 500 square miles. Now, because of school closures due to low enrollment and shrinking budgets, it has only one K-12 school. Kids spend hours riding the bus to a single school building with aging infrastructure where many classrooms are unusable on hot days. 

Huge challenges are also facing urban districts. In Beloit last year one in eight students was homeless. 

“There is this fictitious idea that everyone has budgets, the schools just have to tighten their belts,” says Mandell. The reality is, even as the challenges schools face pile up, the state has steadily decreased funding, to the point where many now face an existential crisis.

The current lawsuit is not the first challenge to Wisconsin’s school funding formula based on the idea that the state is not meeting its constitutional obligation to provide a basic, free education to all children. 

Back in 2000, a divided Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a similar argument in the Vincent v. Voight case. 

In that case, “the Court said the system is not bad enough right now to violate the constitution,” Mandell says. But since then, two full generations of kids have completed kindergarten through 12th grade, and conditions have deteriorated dramatically.

When Vincent v. Voight was decided, school revenue limits were still automatically pegged to inflation. A state law, abolished in 2003, still held that two-thirds of school funding should come from the state.  A popular program, abolished in 2018, still kept class sizes small and offered extra supports to children living in poverty to help them succeed academically.  Overall, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, school funding has not kept pace with inflation in Wisconsin since 2009, a major reversal from the early 2000s, when Wisconsin schools were among the best funded in the nation. 

“The situation keeps getting worse and worse and worse, and we’re saying the court needs to give this another look,” says Mandell.

This is where the hopeful part comes in. Like the gerrymandering lawsuit that prompted the Legislature and the governor to pass fair voting maps in Wisconsin, Mandell believes the school funding lawsuit could trigger major legislative reform. As in the gerrymandering case, “the court’s job is to tell the Legislature, ‘What you have here is not good enough,’ and then give them a short window to fix it,” Mandell says.

It’s not the court’s job to come up with a new funding formula, but if the governor and the Legislature can’t agree, it could impose its own solution.

As the November elections approach, ushering in a new Legislature and a new governor, there’s a real opportunity for change. 

“There is growing momentum and understanding of what the problem is, and what the issue is, on both sides of the aisle,” says DuBois Bourenane. 

She and the other public school advocates in her organization are deeply disappointed that the governor and the Legislature failed to hammer out a deal to give more money to schools, after dangling the idea at the end of the last session. “It’s just criminal that they’re even willing to entertain the idea of sending these kids back to school with nothing again,” she says. “We’ve got 70-plus districts going to referendum again this fall … over a third of our districts went to referendum this calendar year.” 

DuBois Bourenane agrees with Mandell that the lawsuit could spur a breakthrough. 

“I’m just glad that everybody’s talking about it,” she says, “and I hope that they’re paying very close attention to what’s actually possible if we elect people who all agree that we have to fix this broken problem.” 

The Trump administration is increasing its efforts to turn more control of federal education money to the states as it continues working to dismantle the Education Department.

Six states have received waivers allowing them to consolidate more than $109 million in federal education funding and bypass certain requirements for local education agencies, Kirsten Baesler, assistant secretary for the department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, told Stateline in an interview.

The consolidation of four funding streams into one means the money can be used more flexibly by the states with Returning Education to the States waivers — Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, South Dakota and Vermont. Some states chose to put that money toward statewide literacy or math improvement efforts. Indiana will run a pilot program allowing up to 15% of its districts to combine two funding streams that had been focused separately on teachers and students and to alter requirements for all schools on college and career readiness measures when calculating a high school’s performance rating. 

It’s a part of a growing push by the Trump administration to turn federal education measures to state control. Beyond the six states that received these waivers, 22 states have received Education Flexibility Partnership, or Ed-Flex authority, which allows states to waive certain federal education requirements for school districts without seeking separate permission from the Department of Education each time. 

That’s the highest number of states in the program’s 32-year history, Baesler said. 

Those states are: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. 

While many public school district staff welcome the waivers, some state education groups have opposed them. Some have argued that consolidating federal funding weakens guardrails that ensure money goes to the specific populations and programs they were meant to serve. In Arkansas, for example, the Arkansas Education Association warned that greater flexibility would reduce transparency and possibly shift money away from formula-based funding for high-need districts, the Arkansas Advocate reported. 

A state must request such a waiver. Baesler said department officials are working with states before they submit applications to determine whether their goals require a waiver, an amended state plan or could already be done under existing federal law.

Baesler also said state officials should take greater responsibility for identifying and pursuing their own education needs and priorities rather than waiting for direction from the feds.

“Don’t wait for the signal to come because what students in North Dakota need are going to be completely different than what Texas needs or Louisiana or Oregon or Washington,” Baesler said.

In September, the department will convene with state representatives to discuss results from a Learning Agenda Initiative which includes eight states: Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin, officials told Stateline. The program paired state education agencies with federally funded research and technical-assistance centers to examine state data and develop multi-year learning agendas identifying needs and ways to measure a state’s progress on its education priorities.

The department is also giving states additional points on some competitive grant applications when they design or help lead “Returning Education to the States” projects.

The future of the Department of Education has been a hot topic since President Donald Trump signed a March 2025 executive order directing Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to close the department and push more control of education to the states. Congress, which created the department through a 1979 federal law, retains the authority to eliminate it.

But the department has begun to hand off some administrative duties to other federal agencies. 

Carissa Moffat Miller, CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said at an National Conference of State Legislatures conference earlier this month that transferring federal programs between agencies could disrupt grant payments because the Education and Labor departments, for example, use different grant management systems. Those delays could lead districts to hold back spending or pull teacher contracts even if Congress appropriated the money, she said.

Moffat Miller said that federal funding accounts for about 12% of education funding, with the remaining 88% coming from state and local sources. Analysis from Education Week estimated that at least $12 billion in previously awarded federal education funds have been disrupted by administrative actions over the past year.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Carissa Moffat Miller’s name. Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org. 

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When adjusting for inflation and total student population, state K-12 funding has fluctuated over the past eight budgets and is about where it was before major cuts in 2011.

Funding dropped after Republicans required public school employees to pay more toward pension and health insurance costs in 2011 under the law known as Act 10. Then from 2013 to 2020 inflation-adjusted, per-pupil spending on K-12 education increased each year. In the two years after the COVID-19 pandemic, funding decreased but then increased over the next two years.

Inflation-adjusted, per-pupil state spending is now slightly above what it was before the 2011 cuts.

Here are the figures:

2010-2011: $9,469.08

2024-2025: $9,527.65

2023-2024: $9,386.15

2022-2023: $9,299.59

2021-2022: $9,700.89

2020-2021: $9,960.87

2019-2020: $9,380.61

2018-2019: $9,219.23

2017-2018: $9,167.82

2016-2017: $8,825.57

2015-2016: $8,576.74

2014-2015: $8,549.45

2013-2014: $8,426.60

2012-2013: $8,388.53

2011-2012: $8,408.17

2010-2011: $9,469.08

This Fact Brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin Watch: School Funding w/ Sept. Count
• Legislative Fiscal Bureau: State Aid to School Districts
• Department of Public Instruction: September Count

Have eight consecutive Wisconsin state budgets given less money to public schools? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

 

WASHINGTON — The stopgap spending bill supported by an overwhelming majority of U.S. senators does not address tens of billions in expiring transportation funding, leaving states facing a massive effective budget cut starting Oct. 1.

The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which authorized highway and transit programs for five years, expires Sept. 30. Roughly $38.6 billion per year in extra federal transportation funding is set to expire with it, even if the continuing resolution the Senate advanced 89-4 Monday becomes law.

The stopgap measure, a version of which has also passed the House, would keep the government funded mostly at current levels, and reauthorize highway and transit programs through Dec. 11.

But it would not renew the advance appropriations that provided $184 billion over five years for a host of transportation programs under the infrastructure law President Joe Biden signed in his first year in office.

Ben Gilsdorf, an associate legislative director for transportation at the National Association of Counties, said in a Tuesday interview that the advance appropriations funded many of the group’s top transportation priorities.

“It’s not all of the programs under (the infrastructure law) that would stop without an extension,” he said. “But for us, it’s several of the most impactful ones.”

The National Association of Counties was part of a broad range of advocacy groups representing business, labor, cities, state departments of transportation and every mode of transportation that signed a letter last month asking Congress to extend the supplemental funding.

Funding for Transportation Department programs makes up a bit more than half of the total advance appropriations in the infrastructure law, which also includes major funding for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Energy Department and telecommunications program.

The total advance appropriations for fiscal 2026 were about $66.2 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Bridges, airports, transit and more

The DOT funding largely flows to state departments of transportation.

Returning to pre-2021 baseline infrastructure spending would leave every state with less federal funding to cover varied transportation needs.

About 30%, $10.8 billion per year, of the extra transportation funding is determined by formula, meaning the amounts sent to each state vary based on population, highway miles and other factors.

California is the only state that would lose 10 figures worth of funding, at nearly $1.1 billion.

But even Vermont, the state with the lowest total funding lost, would see $55.6 million less in formula funds if the funding is not extended, according to data Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray of Washington sent to her fellow Democratic senators last month.

A total of 10 formula programs representing different modes of transportation would be affected, according to the fact sheet from Murray’s office.

More than half of the formula funding, $5.5 billion, is slated for the Federal Highway Administration’s bridge repair program.

Airport construction funds represent the next-greatest funding at $3 billion per year. The Federal Transit Administration’s grant program to maintain transit system infrastructure would lose $950 million and state transportation departments would lose another $900 million in federal funding for electric vehicle charging stations.

Other affected programs are for highways in Appalachian states, truck safety inspections, ferry boats and terminals, FTA grants for senior passengers and those with disabilities and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration programs.

In addition to formula funds, the remaining 70% of advance appropriations is distributed via 25 competitive grant programs, according to the Murray document.

Grant programs to fund ports, large highway and rail projects, transit station upgrades, roadway safety and other projects would be among those losing funding.

Complicating spending negotiations

While the law that initiated the additional funding was bipartisan, there are indications an extension could be a more partisan issue.

Murray said ahead of the Senate floor vote Monday that Republicans did not “agree to our efforts to extend critical advance appropriations for infrastructure” and vowed to continue pursuing the additional funds.

Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, did not reference advance appropriations in a press release announcing a deal on the stopgap bill.

Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, may prefer to settle the future of the funding through a long-term surface transportation bill or full-year appropriations measure, Gilsdorf said.

Even if the Senate bill is enacted, there will be an opportunity when it expires to revisit the issue, he said.

“There’d be another bite at the apple,” he said.

A person familiar with negotiations who was not authorized to speak on the record said Tuesday that the advance appropriations in the 2021 law were meant to be one-time funding, and that extending them in a stopgap measure meant to preserve the status quo would be inappropriate.

The funding is part of a larger policy debate than is usually considered in a continuing resolution, the person said.

The issue could hang over negotiations for full-year spending bills, likely to begin in earnest after November’s elections.

Senate appropriators have not reached a deal for top-line spending levels for fiscal 2027.

Republicans, at President Donald Trump’s urging, are seeking a massive boost to defense programs.

Democrats historically seek parity between non-defense and defense spending, but have relaxed that stance while the extra infrastructure funds have been flowing. Without that additional funding, Democrats might be less amenable to compromise.

Democratic candidates for governor largely avoided direct attacks on one another during their only televised primary debate Tuesday night, with two weeks remaining before the Aug. 11 primary, instead laying out differences on issues including school vouchers and data centers.

This year’s election is the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010, and the five candidates left in a field that used to include seven are former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, Joel Brennan, former state Department of Administration chief, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong and state Sen. Kelda Roys.

More than 40% of Wisconsin voters have not made up their minds about which candidate to support. 

Recent polls show Hong leading the race. 

The debate was hosted by WISN 12 on the Marquette University campus and moderated by Gerron Jordan and Matt Smith, WISN 12 journalists and hosts of “Upfront,” on the first day of in-person early voting. The candidates were told at the beginning that they were allowed to speak to one another at the start of the debate, but direct back and forth and criticism was minimal throughout the hour-long debate. 

The winner of the primary will likely face U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican nominee in November.

Addressing criticisms 

The debate started with each candidate addressing a critique of their candidacy. 

Crowley, who recently reentered the race for governor with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers, was asked about his decision to drop out and then restart his campaign and whether he is a “prop” of the Democratic establishment.

“I was never born into the establishment. I was actually born into struggle… I’m not here to protect the establishment. I’m here to deliver real results for Wisconsinites all over our state,” Crowley said, adding that the “stakes are too high and that’s why I got back into this race.”

Barnes, who served as lieutenant governor in Evers’ first term, was asked about entering the race after losing his 2022 U.S. Senate race against Sen. Ron Johnson, his failure to garner Evers’ endorsement, and why voters should trust him to win in November when he previously lost. 

Barnes said that his narrow loss to Johnson taught him about the influence of money on elections as well as “how low Republicans can go.” He said that he thinks his campaign will have the resources and support to win, and he appeared to take a poke at Crowley.

“I have zero interest in upholding the status quo. I have zero interest in being the establishment candidate,” Barnes said. “That is the difference right here on the stage because I am pushing the envelope to make sure that we are as bold as we can possibly be in the Donald Trump era, because that’s what people have been calling for Democrats to be all along.” 

Hong, who identifies as a democratic socialist, was asked whether she supports the full platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, which includes abolishing the U.S. Senate. Tiffany has been criticizing her for a tweet from 2021, in which she said “Abolish the Senate.” She said no. 

“I do not support the full platform of the national DSA and I am not endorsed by DSA National,” Hong said. She then focused on defining democratic socialism, saying it is a “form of government that puts working class people first.” 

Brennan and Roys, who are both polling in the single digits, were asked about whether voters were “wasting” their vote by voting for them.

“The challenge that I have had from day one is not that anybody thinks I’m unqualified for the office,” Brennan said, noting his experience as a cabinet member under Evers. “The challenge I have had is that people don’t know me as well as they know some other candidates around the state.” 

Brennan said the recent upheaval in the race  — as well as the perception of insiders “putting their thumb on the scale” — has gotten people more engaged and that will help his candidacy. 

Roys responded to the same question by saying, “If you want the best public schools in the nation for your children, if you want to open up the state’s healthcare plan so that everyone can buy in and we can lower costs for all Wisconsinites, if you want a candidate who is going to stand up and fight Donald Trump and bring an end to this authoritarian regime, then you should vote for me.” 

Public safety funding

Each candidate said he or she would not sign a budget that cut funding to law enforcement and all said that they would sign a bill requiring police across the state of Wisconsin to wear body cameras. 

Candidates were asked about the killing of Corey Ruiz, a Black man, by Madison police. Hong was asked about her public speech on the site of the killing in which she called it an example of state-sanctioned violence and an “execution.” Hong said during the debate that she would not have made the comments before an investigation as governor, since the office has “the largest microphone in the state” and there is “deep responsibility” with that.

“It was clearly the type of violence where no one’s life should have been taken,” Hong said. 

Asked about previous comments she made supporting defunding the police, Hong said she would not cut funding for public safety, but wants to invest in local governments and communities to help reduce crime including by investing in schools, addressing the opioid epidemic and ensuring people coming out of incarceration have proper resources.

“The governor cannot defund police, and I am not here to govern by slogan,” Hong said. “I am here to make sure I am the governor that’s most serious about public safety.”

Barnes faced criticism during his 2022 Senate campaign over comments supporting reducing police funding. He said during the debate he would not sign a budget that decreased police  funding in part because he said police departments must be able to afford body cameras, which Madison police do not have. 

Roys said that she wouldn’t cut police funding and added that the state also needs to invest in local governments, so they can invest in evidence-based programs that reduce and prevent crime. 

“We have to invest in proven strategies that actually do that, unlike what Republicans like Tom Tiffany have done, which is cut funding to local governments and take away local control,” Roys said. 

“We cannot defund the police. We should be investing in public safety,” Crowley said, adding that that includes investing in wraparound services.

Brennan said there needs to be robust funding for local governments, and that the state should look to Minnesota as a model for how to reduce crime, spend less and reduce the prison population while investing in early childhood and K-12 education.

Voucher program

When it comes to the state’s school voucher system, candidates took different positions. 

Barnes said he would reduce the voucher programs in the state, including in Milwaukee where nearly half of students in the city use publicly funded private school vouchers. 

Roys laid out her three-step plan to sunset the voucher programs including implementing transparency and accountability measures to close schools that don’t adhere to higher standards, end the statewide program in the first state budget and wind down the programs while allowing current participating students and their siblings to continue attending private schools with vouchers.

Hong said she would not put a “firm” number on when the voucher programs would need to end, but she supports strengthening public schools and would wind down the voucher program through a “responsible program and process where we work directly with the families and the different schools.” 

Crowley said he would not sign a bill reducing the programs, though he added that he doesn’t want to see them expand either. 

“I don’t think the question is whether or not we should have vouchers,” Crowley said. “The question should be, how do we continue to invest in our public schools to make sure that they’re the school of choice.”

Brennan offered the strongest argument for not signing a bill to reduce or close the programs. He said he wants to cap enrollment and disclose costs of private voucher schools on taxpayers’ property tax bills, but he said reducing the program is not politically feasible. 

“There is not going to be a bill passed in the Legislature that is put on the governor’s desk right now to end vouchers in Milwaukee. There are representatives in Milwaukee… for whom more than half the people who live there are sending their kids to private schools. We have to live in the real world. This is dividing Democrats,” Brennan said. “I wouldn’t put legislators in a position where they’re going to have to tell parents that they can’t send their kids to their schools of their choice.” 

Brennan added that he wants to make Wisconsin’s public schools better than any private school.

Data centers 

Data center construction has become a key issue in the race for governor with polling suggesting that 76% of Wisconsinites say they believe the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Candidates provided different solutions for regulating data centers. 

Hong touted the fact that she is the only candidate to call for a moratorium on data centers and said she would call a special session on the issue to have lawmakers take action on a bill that would impose regulations on data center construction in the state. 

“This moratorium is necessary so that we can responsibly put in enforcement mechanisms to protect communities,” Hong said, noting that some local governments have already imposed  moratoriums. “We also want to make sure that there are the guard rails, the legal resources, and that if data centers are going to come here in our state that they pay their own way and actually pay up front.” 

Crowley said that he did not think a moratorium would address the long-term concerns, and said he would rather focus on ensuring that data centers have to pay for their energy use, grid upgrades and use clean energy.

Brennan said he has not called for a moratorium, but would put a 100-day pause on construction. He said he would also ensure that Wisconsinites are not paying for the construction, ensure there are regulations with “teeth” and that companies are using renewable energy, ensure that union workers are employed on the projects and ban non-disclosure agreements between companies and local governments.

“If we can do that in the first 100 days, it’s not going to make everybody happy, but it’s going to set the bar and take away that uncertainty and take away another reason why people distrust government and why they’re so angry,” Brennan said. 

Barnes said that he wanted no new data center construction without guardrails being put in place to ensure the state’s natural resources and air quality are protected and that residents’ energy bills are not climbing. 

“If a community rejects a data center proposal, then there should be no new data center constructed,” Barnes said. 

Roys said she doubted a moratorium bill could pass, but a bill focused on strong regulations could be successful. 

“I will not stop there,” Roys said. “I will also establish a public negotiating team so that any community that decides it would like to engage with a data center has the opportunity to have expert negotiators. I will increase shared revenue so that communities don’t feel desperate … I will also end the subsidies for data centers because they should be paying us and not the other way around.”

In 30-second closing statements, as each candidate made a pitch for voters’ support, Barnes made some of the most pointed remarks of the night taking shots at Crowley and Hong.

“I want you to know that the establishment is trying to rig this election. They want you to choose between their preferred candidate and also Republican billionaires are lining up to the tune of three and a half million dollars to choose a democratic nominee in this race,” Barnes said, referring to the money the Republican party has invested in ads widely seen as aimed at boosting Hong. “I’m here to say, that’s BS. I’ve been a progressive fighter who’s taken on the tough fights.”

Brennan suggested he is the only one who could win the general election, Roys and Crowley each emphasized their experience and Hong said she was already beating Tiffany by garnering statewide support and would be a fighter for working class voters.

A bipartisan committee of Wisconsin legislators has signed off on a $250,000 funding deal for WisconsinEye, the livestream service that covers the state Legislature.

The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization approved the funds, to be paid out $50,000 per month starting Aug. 1, on a 9-1 vote, the nonpartisan Legislative Council announced Tuesday. The committee is made up of six Republican and four Democratic leaders of both the Senate and the Assembly.

Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), the assistant Senate majority leader, cast the only vote against the proposal.

The funding is to support WisconsinEye so it can provide livestream coverage of floor sessions in the Legislature as well as public hearings and votes held by Senate and Assembly committees, as it continues to seek long-term funding to operate.

WisEye President Jon Henkes welcomed the vote Tuesday, saying that it provided “a strong statement of support” in both chambers “for unfettered citizen access to state government proceedings,” with both Republicans and Democrats signing on.

“They’ve put action to their words that transparency is essential to our democracy, and we are extremely grateful,” Henkes said in a statement.

Henkes said the sum was sufficient for WisconsinEye to maintain operations through December, including its coverage of events in the 2026 election campaign as well as coverage of the Legislature’s joint study committees, which are discussing a variety of topics with future policy implications.

The vote also provides “an existing foundation of ongoing support” that will be important to charitable donors and WisEye program sponsors, according to the WisconsinEye statement.

The streaming service is counting on the new Legislature that takes office in January 2027 to reach a bipartisan agreement for future partial funding for the service.

WisconsinEye launched as an independent nonprofit in 2007 to livestream and archive government meetings and legislative sessions. The service has operated on donations and runs independently from the state Legislature.

WisconsinEye’s management announced in November 2025 that it needed additional revenue to support the service’s $900,000 annual budget after donations fell behind in the last couple of years.  The service went dark for nearly two months at the end of December, resuming in February.

Two separate proposals to fund the service passed earlier this year, one in the Assembly and the other in the Senate, but neither one got a vote in the opposite chamber.

Wisconsin lawmakers are voting this week to fund WisconsinEye through the end of 2026 with $250,000.

The funding would support the service, which provides livestream coverage of floor sessions in the Legislature as well as public hearings and votes held by Senate and Assembly committees, as it continues to seek long-term funding to operate.

Members of the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization received paper ballots Monday to vote on a proposal to send WisconsinEye $50,000 per month starting in August and ending in December. The cost would be split between the Assembly and the Senate.

The ballots are due at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Funding would come from appropriations in the budget to carry out the functions of each chamber, including expenses for legislative documents, according to the Wisconsin Legislative Council, a nonpartisan service agency for the Legislature.

WisEye CEO Jon Henkes could not be reached for comment Monday on the potential impact of the funding if it is approved as expected.

WisconsinEye launched as an independent nonprofit in 2007 to livestream and archive government meetings and legislative sessions. The service has operated on donations and runs independently from the state Legislature.

WisconsinEye’s management announced in November 2025 that it needed additional revenue to support the service’s $900,000 annual budget after donations fell behind in the last couple of years.

Henkes told the Wisconsin Examiner at the time that contributions haven’t kept up with expenses since the COVID-19 pandemic. WisEye temporarily halted coverage Dec. 15, 2025. It resumed coverage Feb. 2, 2026, after the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization authorized $50,000 to cover the service for that month.

Two separate proposals to fund the service passed earlier this year, one in the Assembly and the other in the Senate, but neither one got a vote in the opposite chamber.

WisEye launched a GoFundMe campaign in January with a goal of raising $250,000. In a July 15 fundraising email, WisEye said it had raised nearly half of that goal and needed $130,000 “to maintain operations for the next few months.”

WASHINGTON — One day after President Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of the remains of four U.S. service members killed as a result of the Iran conflict, the two chambers of Congress were at odds over whether to rein in the president’s military powers in the monthslong war.

While members of the U.S. House approved a War Powers Resolution 214-208, with four Republicans joining all Democrats, lawmakers in the U.S. Senate rejected the measure by a slim margin of 47-49, though two senators who previously supported the measure did not vote.

Trump reignited the conflict earlier this month, rupturing a ceasefire during 60-day negotiations between the U.S. and Iran to end the war. The countries have since been trading rocket fire on a near-daily basis.

The most recent deaths of U.S. soldiers in the conflict bring the total killed to 18. Three service members were killed July 17 and July 18 in an Iranian strike at a U.S. airbase in Jordan, and a fourth was killed during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone July 19 at a U.S. base in Iraq. 

The dignified transfer, in which the remains of soldiers are transferred from an aircraft arriving from the theater of operations back to the United States, occurred at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The soldiers were identified by the Pentagon as:

• Army 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii
• Army Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas
• Army Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York
• Army Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina

Gas prices shoot back up

Economic fallout is also center stage again as Iran has choked off nearly all traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s petroleum traveled prior to the war. 

Oil reached over $100 a barrel Thursday, and AAA clocked gas prices at $4.09 a gallon across the U.S.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who prefers the title secretary of War, told Senate appropriators Tuesday the war has so far cost $37.5 billion. The administration has requested an additional $67 billion.

Dissident Republicans

House Republicans who sided with Democrats to stop Trump’s military action in Iran included Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Tom Barrett of Michigan. 

In the Senate, Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who both voted “yes” for some or all of the dozen Iran War Powers Resolutions considered so far during the conflict, did not vote.

A spokesperson for Murkowski said the senator returned to Alaska Wednesday for a family emergency. Paul’s office did not immediately respond regarding the reason for his absence.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican locked in a tough reelection race, supported the measure Thursday.

As he has on all previous votes to curb the president’s war powers in Iran, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the resolution, which some argue is not legal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in early May that the 1973 War Powers Resolution is “unconstitutional.” 

Congress overruled President Richard Nixon’s veto of the measure meant to rein in his actions during the Vietnam War.

According to Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell on Monday, 100 troops have been injured since July 7, and 96% have returned to work. 

The department’s Defense Casualty Analysis System only identifies five injuries during Operation Epic Fury in July, and 420 total since the conflict began Feb. 28.

WASHINGTON — Republicans in the U.S. House on Wednesday approved their outline for the third party-line budget measure of the second Trump administration, though they won’t be able to begin work on that package until they reach agreement with their Senate colleagues on a plan forward. 

The 216-214 vote on a budget resolution sets up a confrontation between GOP lawmakers in Congress over exactly how much funding to provide for the war in Iran and farm assistance as well as whether lawmakers should pay for it by cutting spending elsewhere. 

House Republicans proposed a total of $95 billion in spending in their budget resolution. The instructions in that blueprint would allow four committees to eventually write bills that would spend up to $60 billion on the military, $13 billion on intelligence agencies, $12 billion on agricultural assistance and $10 billion on some sort of grant program for states that implement voter ID laws. 

But work on that package can only begin after Republicans in both chambers vote to approve the same budget resolution with identical sets of reconciliation instructions. 

Third time around

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said during floor debate that the GOP has used the reconciliation process twice to achieve policy goals that wouldn’t garner Democratic support. 

The first time was last year, when Congress approved the “big, beautiful” law. The second occurred earlier this year, when lawmakers approved three years of funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol without new constraints on federal agents. Both were signed into law by President Donald Trump.

“Here we are, reconciliation 3.0, supporting our troops in their time of need,” Arrington said. “Just baseline battlefield readiness. Bullets and bombs to finish the job.”

The yet-to-be-written reconciliation package, he added, would also likely “strengthen our food supply” and “safeguard the integrity of our elections.”

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle, ranking member on the panel, said that Republicans’ support for the two earlier packages and this budget outline shows they aren’t focused on bringing down costs for Americans. 

Boyle also questioned whether campaign promises from GOP candidates to lower the annual federal deficit were genuine, given that this and the previous party-line laws will have a substantial impact on the national debt. 

“Yes, that’s right, the same crowd that loves to cry crocodile tears about deficit and debt whenever there’s a president in the White House who’s a Democrat — cumulatively now they have added $5 trillion to our national debt, more than any other 18-month period in the history of Congress,” he said. “And they’re about to add $100 billion more.” 

Senate GOP not on board

Senate Republicans don’t fully agree on their House counterparts’ proposed spending level, with some wanting considerably more in defense funding, and others looking for ways to offset the costs. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a Tuesday afternoon press conference that he’s unlikely to bring any budget resolution to the floor until after lawmakers figure out a way to fund the government ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline. 

Congress’ budget resolution is just a blueprint, similar to a blueprint for building a house. It isn’t a bill and never goes to the president for his signature. 

Lawmakers use a completely separate process to fund the government through a dozen annual appropriations bills. 

But since lawmakers are nowhere near close to finishing that appropriations task before the start of the new fiscal year they must agree to some sort of short-term spending bill to avoid another shutdown this fall. 

The House this week passed a stopgap bill that would extend that deadline until Dec. 4, but it doesn’t have the support needed to advance in the Senate, where leaders from both political parties are working toward a bipartisan compromise. 

Thune said he expects the Senate will vote on its stopgap spending bill before leaving for the August recess, which could delay work on a budget resolution until that chamber returns in mid-September.  

“It’s possible that that would be something that would get punted into September,” he said.

That could lead to a significant time crunch for Republicans if they want to use the complex budget reconciliation process to enact their party-line defense and farm aid spending package before the November midterm elections. 

There are just three weeks in September when both chambers are scheduled to be in session before lawmakers depart for their five-week October break.

And while the House can approve the budget resolution and an eventual party-line package without taking up a single amendment on the floor, the Senate process is considerably more arduous. 

The Senate has unlimited amendment debate on both measures, giving Democrats in that chamber dozens of opportunities to challenge Republicans on spending and policy choices.

That’s not necessarily an ideal scenario for Republican Senate leaders, who hope voters will allow the party to hold onto its narrow majority for another two years. 

Shauneen Miranda contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — A supermajority of the U.S. Senate Democratic Caucus has asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to deploy body cameras to all federal immigration officers, following deadly shootings of immigrants in Texas and Maine.

In a July 19 letter addressed to Mullin, 38 Senate Democrats and Maine’s Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, requested information about the shootings this month in Houston of 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and in Biddeford, Maine, of 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. 

Neither man was the initial enforcement target when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stopped their vehicles, the Department of Homeland Security has said.

“The unnecessary loss of life in these incidents demands immediate, thorough, independent, and transparent investigations (including the full involvement of local and state law enforcement personnel), along with a comprehensive examination of enforcement protocols, training, and operational approaches necessary to prevent such tragedies,” the senators wrote.

The lawmakers pressed Mullin about providing body cameras to immigration officers, pointing out the Congress has allocated $175 billion to the department since last year. From that funding, DHS planned to hire up to 10,000 ICE officers.

“While DHS has previously acknowledged that body-worn cameras promote public trust and increase officer and public safety, accountability, and transparency, the Department has clearly not prioritized acquiring cameras,” the senators wrote.

None of the ICE officers involved in the shootings were wearing body cameras. 

“Contrary to recent statements made by the Department and the White House, DHS has had more than sufficient time and funding to procure and deploy a body-worn camera for every officer before the end of 2025,” they wrote.

Enough funding

Congressional Republicans last year used a special legislative maneuver to allocate roughly $175 billion to DHS for immigration enforcement, detainment and deportations, without needing Democratic support. 

They used the same move following the shutdown this year to fund $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol through September of 2029. 

Republicans used the maneuver that allows party-line votes after Democrats refused to provide more funding for DHS unless restraints were placed on ICE and Border Patrol officers following the killings of two U.S. citizens — Alex Pretti and Renee Good — by federal immigration agents in Minnesota in January. 

Among Democrats’ demands at the time was that immigration officers wear body cameras. Top Trump officials, including then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, said body cameras would be provided to immigration agents.

“The recent tragedies confirm that neither of these commitments were honored,” senators wrote in the letter.

Traffic stops unpaused

White House border czar Tom Homan said over the weekend that ICE officers will wear “at least one body camera” during traffic stops.

Following the two killings this month, DHS instructed immigration officers to pause vehicle stops, but President Donald Trump quickly instructed the department to continue the policy.  

During the second Trump administration, federal immigration officers have shot 22 people and killed six, including three U.S. citizens. Most of the shootings stemmed from traffic stops.

In the letter, senators also sought information about DHS’s plan to have an independent investigation into the killings, the vetting process for new immigration officers, the department’s procedures for vehicle stops and any additional oversight and reporting requirements DHS is implementing.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate committee in charge of funding the government spent hours in a hearing room Tuesday, trying to parse out just how much extra spending lawmakers should provide for the military amid the ongoing war in Iran. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators the bombing of Iran has cost $37.5 billion. He said that while the department has about $75 billion in unobligated funds from Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law, that money wasn’t intended to cover the costs of the war. 

Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee also heard from three of their colleagues about the need for natural disaster recovery funding and the secretary of Agriculture about her request for emergency aid for farmers. 

Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, summed up the multitude of proposals for additional money by saying the “country has many urgent funding needs.”

Collins said that while there were vastly different views among senators on the panel about the war, “the fact remains that there are must-pay bills and urgent requirements facing the department that affect the ability of our troops to be well trained and more broadly of the U.S. military to deter and defend against potential aggressors worldwide.”

Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the committee, said at the beginning of the three-and-a-half hour hearing the United States “is no safer or better off than before the war.”

“In fact, we are considerably less safe. Our stockpiles have been depleted and it will take years of production to fully replenish them no matter how much money is thrown at this problem,” Murray said.

By the end of the hearing, she indicated Democrats may not support any emergency funding for the Defense Department related to the Iran war. 

“Unfortunately, this hearing has done exceptionally little to justify the president’s request or to instill confidence that this administration has an exit plan or a strategy to end the war,” Murray said. “This war has cost us a lot. The last thing we should be doing is rubber stamping another $70 billion to help Trump keep it going.”

Hegseth warns of ‘critical shortfalls’  

Hegseth said that without extra money from Congress, the department would “face critical shortfalls that threaten” its ability to “pay our service members, rapidly replenish equipment and munitions, and sustain vital operations without disruption.”

Hegseth repeatedly defended the Iran war during the hearing, pressing back on criticism from several Democrats that it was similar to earlier wars in the Middle East. 

“President Trump said we’re not fighting stupid wars like that again and he hasn’t,” Hegseth said. “That’s why we haven’t been trying to remake Iranian society, but simply in the realist America First way, ensure they never have a path to a nuclear bomb, full stop.”

He declined to go into detail in a non-classified setting about the aid China and Russia has provided to Iran, but did say those two countries are “enabling some of the things Iran is doing.”

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John D. Caine said he’d prefer not discuss the intelligence about those two countries. 

“I’d rather not opine on the specifics because that would divulge what we know. And I never want the adversary to know what I know. I just want to know it,” he said. 

Caine also declined to go into any level of detail about whether the administration has contemplated sending ground troops into Iran. 

“I think it’d be unhelpful for me to opine on hypothetical situations on whatever decisions the president may or may not take in the future,” Caine said. 

Trump request to Congress

Congress approved $838.7 billion for the Defense Department in February as part of the annual government funding process. A few weeks later, President Donald Trump began bombing Iran, starting a war that has led to the deaths of 17 U.S. service members — including three in the last few days — and injured more than 445.

The administration sent a supplemental spending request to Congress in late June, asking lawmakers to provide $87.6 billion in emergency funding. It proposed an additional:

• $67.15 billion for the Defense Department
• $11.1 billion for the Agriculture Department to provide aid to farmers
• $3.36 billion for the State Department for diplomatic, security and global health programs
• $2.03 billion for the U.S. Coast Guard
• $1 billion for the Transportation Department to “to assist in the final design and construction of a modernized Penn Station in New York City”
• $1 billion for the Labor Department to “increase the benefit levels for participants of certain pension plans that were sponsored by Delphi Corporation and terminated as a result of General Motors’ bankruptcy in 2009″
• $767.5 million for the Energy Department
• $600 million for the General Services Administration’s federal buildings fund
• $500 million for the National Park Service to upgrade a seawall and improve the World War II Memorial
• $40.26 million for the FBI for its role in the Iran war and “other classified needs”
• $36.18 million for the Treasury Department’s office of terrorism and financial intelligence
• $13.1 million for the Homeland Security Department’s operations and support account that was part of a “classified request.”

House Republicans want to use the complex budget reconciliation process to provide up to $60 billion for the Defense Department and $12 billion for farm aid. 

But that effort hasn’t yet garnered the support from Senate Republicans needed to advance. GOP lawmakers used the same process last year to bolster defense funding by about $150 billion in the “big, beautiful” law. 

That means the most likely path to provide extra money for the war and farmers will be a bipartisan supplemental spending bill, likely written by the Appropriations Committees. 

With the House set to leave Thursday for its August recess and the Senate planning to leave for its break on Aug. 6, the earliest any additional funding would become law is September.

Farm aid

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration’s request for emergency funding would help farmers, including those who have experienced extreme weather events. 

Collins, however, questioned the administration’s decision to limit its request for supplemental funding to agriculture losses that took place during the last year. 

“Many of our producers are struggling amid a combination of market volatility and disaster conditions last year, which included excessive rainfall in the spring, followed by a severe drought. They need relief. Yet the administration’s supplemental request does not include funding to address these recovery needs,” Collins said. “It does have $1.1 billion to help Florida agricultural producers rebound from a severe freeze this past winter. But nothing for prior disasters in other states.”

Rollins said she would be in full support of Congress providing more funding than requested for farmers affected by severe weather events. 

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley asked Rollins to ensure the Office of Management and Budget sends lawmakers a specific request to address ongoing costs related to wildfires. 

“Senators are asking for a number from OMB in order to go forward,” he said. “And when we’re looking at the fires right now, my home state is in the epicenter of the highest risk in the country.”

Rollins said she would “absolutely” get that number to lawmakers, adding it “is a paramount importance, especially in the middle of fire season right now.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House approved a stopgap spending bill Tuesday that would keep the government up and running through the fall, sending it to the Senate, where lawmakers expect to rework the measure.

Congress must pass a government funding bill before the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1 in order to avoid a shutdown just weeks before the November midterm elections.

The 220-205 mostly party-line vote represents House Republicans’ opening salvo in negotiations, though without Democratic support it won’t be able to advance in the Senate. 

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said during floor debate that GOP leaders hope passing the stopgap spending bill months before the start of the next fiscal year will avoid another shutdown. 

“For anyone questioning this legislation, the facts are simple — it extends the government funding deadline to Dec. 4, denying any party the opportunity to manufacture leverage before elections,” Cole said. “It contains no poison pills or partisan riders. It prevents harmful disruptions to our national security and the vital programs our constituents rely on.”

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the committee, opposed the stopgap, saying it would “allow Homeland Secretary (Markwayne) Mullin to transfer billions of dollars to the Border Patrol.”

Republicans, she said, “refused” to change that aspect of the bill after Democrats “shared language to fix it.”

“We cannot in good conscience allow billions of dollars to flow to these agencies without major reforms to keep our constituents safe from further violence,” DeLauro said. 

Democrats don’t want a government shutdown but also don’t want “to rush” the process and omit the list of anomalies just sent up by the White House, she said. 

Those tweaks to funding levels are commonly added to stopgap spending bills but weren’t included in House Republicans’ measure because it was written before the White House sent a list of requested anomalies to lawmakers Monday. 

“There are over 50 programs listed by the agencies to take some action so that they can be protected during a continuing resolution,” DeLauro said, using the technical term for a short-term funding bill. 

The changes would support wildfire suppression activities, housing assistance for tens of thousands and programs that help people in rural communities afford their utilities.

“Rushing this bill to the floor haphazardly without carefully considering the various needs that must be met is no way to govern,” DeLauro said. “And it is irresponsible.” 

Senate anticipates changes

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said earlier in the day that she was working with the committee’s top Democrat, Washington Sen. Patty Murray, to draft a continuing resolution of their own. 

“It appears that there is good faith on the Democratic side to try to pass the CR and avoid a government shutdown, which is always a disaster,” Collins said. 

Murray said the House’s stopgap spending bill has “problems” that will need to be fixed in order to move through the Senate.

“We just got the anomalies last night and both of us are trying to figure out the best way to get it put together,” Murray said. 

Appropriations status

Lawmakers must lean on a stopgap spending bill because they will, once again, fail to complete work on the dozen annual government funding bills before the deadline. 

The House has passed three of its spending bills. The Senate hasn’t passed any, in part, because the committee hasn’t released a single bill. The two chambers will need to begin negotiations at some point to settle on a total spending level for the 12 bills and how that roughly $1.9 trillion will be broken down among thousands of federal agencies and programs. 

That means the earliest the full-year government spending bills would become law is during the lame-duck session that is set to last for about five weeks between the election and the start of the new Congress in January. 

Lawmakers could also pass a series of stopgap funding bills instead of completing negotiations on the full-year appropriations bills. 

WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are pushing back against a proposed Trump administration rule introduced by the Office of Management and Budget that would substantially change the way federal grants are reviewed and distributed.

Over the past few weeks, several groups of lawmakers have written public comment letters to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought expressing strong opposition to the new draft rule, which would give political appointees the power to decide what institutions receive grant funding, among other revisions. 

A summary of the rule cites the Biden administration as to why it is needed. “Federal awards were often used during those years to promote a ‘woke’ policy agenda that did not reflect the values of the vast majority of the American public,” it says, pointing to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, policies.

Democrats said the proposal exceeds the office’s authority, will make it harder for grant recipients to carry out funding priorities established by Congress and would turn federal grants into a tool for President Donald Trump to “unilaterally advance his partisan agenda and punish political rivals.” 

The draft rule would allow Trump to “terminate or suspend any grant at any time for any reason and without any notice,” they said.

“Ultimately, these changes will make it harder for grant recipients to apply for and manage federal funds – undermining public safety, public health, economic competitiveness, and the government’s ability to address rising costs,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in their July 1 letter to Vought. 

Maryland Democrats in Congress and members of the Congressional Community Safety Caucus, led by Reps. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, LaMonica McIver of New Jersey and Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, also wrote letters urging OMB to rescind its proposed new rule. 

Hundreds of billions in funds affected

The more than 100-page draft rule, published in collaboration with 41 other federal grant-making agencies on May 29 and titled “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,” would change the framework used to evaluate grant applications as well as guidelines for cost sharing.

It would potentially affect hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding at universities, nonprofit organizations and other U.S. institutions, according to SciLine, an independent nonprofit service for journalists and scientists run out of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Under the proposed rule, federal grants could not be used to “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” DEI initiatives. 

Awards would also in many cases have to “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities,” and agencies would be allowed to cancel funding that is “not effective at achieving program goals or Federal agency priorities” or “no longer in the Federal Government’s interest.” 

“The overarching goal of OMB’s proposed revisions is to improve transparency, accountability, and oversight for how Federal taxpayer dollars are used in the context of Federal grantmaking,” according to the executive summary of the rule.

OMB officials say they could implement the new draft rule as early as Oct. 1. 

Community violence intervention programs 

During the public comment period for the draft rule, which ran from May 29 to July 13, congressional Democrats slammed its vague language and the implications it holds for many institutions that rely on federal funds. 

Maryland’s senators and Democratic representatives in their July 10 letter to Vought denounced the rule for changing a process traditionally based on merit. “The federal grantmaking process includes essential, non-political guardrails that this rule seeks to eviscerate,” they wrote.

They also said the proposed rule contains a slew of new undefined standards for grants, including that they must adhere to “gold standard science” and cannot reflect “anti-American values,” that recipients may not be able to understand or comply with. 

Maryland institutions, often known as hubs for scientific research and innovation, have been hit hard by National Institutes of Health funding cuts and mass federal layoffs since Trump began his second term in 2025. Local governments and schools that receive federal funds have also taken blows, as has the state’s overall economy. 

In their July 13 letter, members of the Congressional Community Safety Caucus voiced concerns over how the draft rule could specifically affect community violence intervention programs. 

Community violence intervention programs, local efforts that have been linked to drops in violent crime rates in cities across the country, rely on federal grants for “state and local government investments, hospital partnerships, philanthropy, and research support,” according to the lawmakers’ letter.

The new draft rule, they wrote, would jeopardize the operation of these programs by allowing Trump administration officials to “withhold, suspend, or terminate grants, or change terms and conditions mid-implementation, forcing grantees to operate in a tumultuous environment.” 

The administration has already made cuts to parts of the Office of Justice Programs, further limiting the funds available to community violence intervention programs.

Other responses 

Though opposition to the proposed rule is mainly coming from Democratic lawmakers, some bipartisan criticism regarding the rule’s broad scope and fast timeline exists. 

Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, on July 6 asked Vought to extend the proposal’s public comment period at least 90 days and “withdraw portions of the rule that would potentially harm small and rural communities and scientific and biomedical research.”

“While I agree these principles should guide the administration and oversight of Federal funds, the rule would impose new, burdensome requirements on award recipients … and conflict with Congress’ control over the federal funding process,” she wrote.  

OMB did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on lawmaker pushback to the proposed rule. But Vought took to social media last month to express his view of the opposition. 

“The freakout by those on the Left subsidized by taxpayer funds over OMB’s update of the regulation governing federal grant making tells you how important it is to keep the bureaucracies from leaking out spending that is woke, wasteful, and contra to the policies of the Trump Administration thru the NGOs,” he wrote. 

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress from both parties indicated Tuesday they will support additional security funding for the U.S. Supreme Court after two justices testified about a sharp rise in threats.

Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett told lawmakers on the House panel that writes the court’s annual funding bill an increase is needed to ensure around-the-clock security wherever they go and for upgrades to the building.

“Maybe I lack imagination, but I didn’t expect that performing this service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one,” Barrett said. 

Kagan told members of the House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee during the hearing that the court’s budget has increased, on average, by 15% per year during the last five years, mostly due to safety concerns and inflation. 

“I first joined the court in 2010. Our security was very different at the time. The Supreme Court police focused almost exclusively on protecting the building. And our (information technology) department focused on supporting the latest BlackBerry devices,” Kagan said. “I didn’t have a security team of my own, and I was accompanied by security personnel only when I participated in work-related public events.”

The court, she added, began increasing its security spending around 2017 after members of Congress encouraged the justices to take their safety more seriously. 

Security threats have steadily increased since then. 

“The Capitol Police Chief recently testified that threats against Congress are up 50% this year,” Kagan said. “The Supreme Court police expect a smaller but still very substantial 38% annual increase in threats this year, which follows a 25% increase last year.” 

Proposed $29M increase

Subcommittee Chairman David Joyce, R-Ohio, said that regardless of how the court rules on any given case, the justices “must be able to do their jobs without fear for their safety or their family’s safety.”

Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, ranking member on the panel, said that given the “deeply divided country and increasingly violent rhetoric being directed at judges, Congress must provide sufficient funding to ensure the safety of all judicial personnel.”

The House subcommittee, he said, appropriated $207 million for the Supreme Court, which included a $28.9 million increase for security, in the bill it approved earlier this year. That legislation hasn’t yet gone to the floor for a vote. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee hasn’t yet released any of its dozen government funding bills for the next fiscal year ahead of the Oct. 1 shutdown deadline. 

Kagan rejects ‘shadow’ docket label

Lawmakers on the House panel pressed the justices about the court’s ethics policy and raised concerns over the increase in cases it takes up as part of its emergency, or shadow, docket. 

Hoyer said the justices deciding cases without a full briefing or oral arguments and then issuing a ruling with little or no explanation has had a negative impact on Americans’ trust in the court. 

Barrett noted that people “have long had the ability to seek interim relief from the court,” though she agreed with Hoyer that the justices have “seen a big change in the volume and the nature of such requests.”

Kagan responded she doesn’t believe it’s “appropriate” to refer to those cases as the shadow docket instead of the emergency or interim docket because the justices have done “a better job in the recent past” of “explaining ourselves at least to a moderate degree.” 

She added that a year ago she might have answered the question differently because the Supreme Court was providing such little explanation in those specific cases “that lower courts had a great deal of difficulty trying to figure out what” exactly the justices had addressed. 

“I don’t think that that’s so much a problem anymore,” Kagan said. “I think that as we’ve gotten more experienced in these constant requests that are coming to us for emergency relief, that we better recognize that at least sometimes there is a need for additional information. And we have issued opinions and sometimes majority and dissenting opinions accordingly.”

Ethics policy

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, encouraged the justices to figure out a way to enforce the ethics policy the court instituted in 2023. 

Kagan testified the court “should work hard to try to figure out some enforcement system,” but emphasized any changes need to come from the justices themselves. 

“I will say that that’s an extremely difficult question for a pretty obvious reason, I think, which is that I don’t think that you would want an enforcement system that was controlled by the executive branch or by the legislature,” Kagan said. “And this is because of what you said in your opening statement about the importance of judicial independence.”

Barrett testified she was “completely committed to” the ethics code but that she was “less certain” about whether and how to enforce it. 

“I’m just not quite sure. The judiciary moves slowly. The court moves slowly. We have turtles everywhere because of that,” Barrett said. “And I think that if we had a body to enforce the code it would have to come from within the judiciary. And I just think then it’s a question of who selects the judges, how is the panel comprised. There’s just a lot of complexity.” 

Proposed screening center

The two justices testified before the Senate Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee in the afternoon. And while they addressed many of the same questions and concerns raised during the morning House hearing, they provided some additional details about security. 

The Supreme Court would like Congress to provide $6.5 million to begin the process of building an external security screening center, which Kagan said could be similar to the Capitol Visitor Center that sits underground just east of the building. 

“Right now visitors walk into the court and that’s where they are checked. That’s where they are sent through the magnetometer and checked for weapons and so forth,” Kagan said. 

As far as personnel, Kagan testified the Supreme Court has a goal of reaching 477 police officers but that the justices are “a ways away from that right now.”

“If we include people we get through contracting, we can probably do it within a couple of years,” Kagan said. “But in order to have our own employees get up to that mark, then we’re talking more about six years.”

Kagan was unable to answer a question from Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., about the types of training those police officers must complete and the facilities they would need. 

“I’m confident that the kind of training programs that we’ve put in place are good ones, but I can’t give you a whole lot of detail about that,” she said.  

Barrett told senators the need for more dedicated police officers comes, in part, from the U.S. Marshals Service telling the court months earlier than expected their officers could no longer provide security at the justices’ homes. 

“They themselves were just stretched thin,” Barrett said. “So we had always wanted to take it over ourselves, but we were forced to do that on a quicker timeline. And we are now fully doing it within the Supreme Court police through a combination of our full-time officers and contractors.”

WASHINGTON — Republicans are campaigning to keep control of Congress for another two years, but their message about being the “grown-ups” in the room keeps getting overshadowed by public feuds that have sidetracked work on major legislation. 

After enacting large swaths of their agenda during the last year and a half, GOP lawmakers can’t seem to agree on what comes next, with senators openly debating each other on social media and a group of far-right House lawmakers blocking work on the floor, forcing the speaker to send them home early for the Fourth of July break. The infighting and limited time in session could prevent Republicans from notching any more wins before voters head to the polls in November.

The disagreements, largely over a voter identification bill known as the SAVE America Act, have held up the annual government funding measures needed to avoid another shutdown and a defense policy package that provides lawmakers one of their best opportunities to shape the country’s military objectives. 

Agreement on a farm bill to address agriculture and food safety net programs is years overdue with few signs of true momentum. And lawmakers are no closer to reauthorizing a foreign surveillance program that lapsed earlier this year for the first time in decades. 

On top of all that, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wants to use the complex budget reconciliation process to pass a third party-line bill, though his Senate counterparts aren’t fully on board with that idea. 

Johnson said during an interview on “Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream” in early July that he believes the package could include elements of the voter identification bill, possibly clearing the way for other legislation to move forward. He said the reluctance from some Republican senators “is based upon what they think may be in it.” 

“What we’re planning to do is send over a bill that will be irresistible for any Republican. A really incredible piece of legislation that will get the job done, meaning that we will continue to increase affordability; we will reduce fraud, waste and abuse in government; and we’ll secure elections,” Johnson said. “Every Republican will vote for that if packaged correctly. And that’s what we’re planning to do right now.” 

Lawmakers’ time to get that done will be extremely limited when combined with other work on Congress’ to-do list. 

Both chambers return to the nation’s capital on July 13 but will be out for nearly all of August and October. In total, the House will be in session for about 24 days and the Senate at work on Capitol Hill for approximately 28 days ahead of the November midterm elections. 

GOP argues for keeping majorities

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a late June press conference he wants to “get as much done as we can in the amount of time we have left between now and the midterm elections.”

“There are things that I believe will create a record of accomplishment that our candidates can run on that will enable us to take an argument to the American people that will persuade them that they want to keep majorities here in Congress, in the United States Senate and in the House, that are Republican to work with the president to get good things done for this country,” he said.

While GOP senators “have differences of opinion,” Thune said, they agree that their goals should be “to keep the country safe, to put more money in the pockets of the American people and to give them better opportunities to get ahead.”

Republican senators, however, do not agree when it comes to the SAVE America Act that would, among other things, require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot. 

Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee posted to social media in early July that the chamber must pass that package, even if that means changing the rule that requires at least 60 lawmakers vote to cut off debate. Republicans control the chamber with 53 seats.

“History will not look kindly on us if we don’t pass the SAVE America Act,” he wrote. “Neither will voters.”

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn responded in a post of his own: “Then show us the votes!”

Filibuster fight

Michael Thorning, director of structural democracy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the slim majority in the House and narrow majority in the Senate combined with President Donald Trump’s focus on the voter identification bill has led to “a lot of negotiation between different factions within the party about what is going to be on the agenda.”

While the House can pass bills with a simple majority, the Senate needs bipartisan support for most bills to move past procedural votes. This requires compromise between Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber on some of the more pressing and politically fraught issues. 

That requirement often results in changes to House-passed bills or an inability to move forward with them at all — leading to considerable tension between GOP lawmakers who want to keep the procedural step and those that want to get rid of it.

The 60-vote threshold gives Democrats a chance to force compromise, but it also gives them a way to slow down or gridlock the Senate during an election year, compounding the challenges Republican leaders face from within their own party. 

This year is no exception. Democratic leaders must balance calling on voters to reject Republican incumbents while on the campaign trail and then work with some of those very lawmakers to negotiate certain must-pass bills when back on Capitol Hill. 

“This, really unfortunately, is a part of a longer term trend that we’ve seen for quite a while in Congress, which is that the minority party does not have a lot of incentive to cooperate with the majority,” Thorning said. “And so, you know, it’s not unusual to see the minority party sort of trying to posture and position itself to deny the majority party perceived legislative wins.”

That calculation is particularly acute on government funding ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline, following three shutdowns of varying impact and length during the last year.

“I would say on appropriations, the difficulty there on funding the government is that it’s never clear which way the blame is going to cut,” Thorning said, adding it would be “a pretty risky assumption” that a funding lapse this year would be blamed on Republicans. 

“If Democrats were to deny the appropriations process from going forward and the government were shut down, it’s not clear who the voters would blame,” Thorning said. “And that would really be happening for the first time ever right up to an election. You know, voters have rarely had the opportunity to weigh in quite that proximate to a government shutdown on who they do or don’t blame. So that’s sort of uncharted territory.”

Federal grants with awards ranging from several hundred thousand to tens of millions of dollars are available to help implement school safety measures, including improving school infrastructure and security, and strengthening emergency response planning and coordination.

Two federal funding programs are currently soliciting applications: One for states and the other for school districts.

The School Safety Enhancement (SSE) program was announced May 27 by the Administration for Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human services on behalf of the U.S. Department of Education. SSE is expected to fund 30 awards nationwide to state agencies defined by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The estimated award range of the SSE grants are $500,000 to $5 million each. Administrative costs are capped at 10 percent of the annual grant award. Funds will supplement and not replace existing non-federal funds. Grants also cannot be used for construction renovation or repair of school facilities.

Projects could include safety and security exercises conducted by states with local first responders, such as mock-casualty school bus incidents. Only one application per state is permitted.

Applications are due July 28, 2026, by 11:59 p.m. ET.

The other federal program benefiting individual public school and charter school districts as well as school boards, local governments and law enforcement agencies is the School Violence Prevention Program (SVVP) through the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS.

Eligible programs are emergency operations planning, active threat response coordination, and school safety assessments. The funding caps at $500,000 per award and requires matching local funds of at least 25 percent. Approximately $1 million of the available funding will be reserved for microgrants of up to $100,000 for school districts, including rural, tribal and low-resourced schools.

The SVPP application deadline is Aug. 11 at 4:59 p.m. ET.

How Federal Funding Could Be Used for School Bus Training

One program that could benefit from either state or local funding is Operation STEER in Texas. Diane Wilson, the safety and training specialist for the Region 6 Education Service Center in Huntsville, Texas, organizes and presents the annual training in coordination with a state grant and with local fire and police departments that consists of mock-casualty school bus crashes.

She noted SSE and SVVP emphasize prevention, preparedness training and coordinated safety efforts, all of which are key components of her events.

“While Operation STEER is currently a Texas-specific program, we are in the process of developing a broader initiative that will expand the model on a larger scale,” she added. “Given ESC’s role within the Texas education system and our partnership with [Texas Education Agency], I will believe there could be opportunities to position STEER as part of a larger school safety effort that aligns well with the objectives of this funding.”

Paul Hasenmeier, the fire chief and director of public safety for Hernando County, Florida, encouraged all states to apply for SSE in particular. He regularly works with school districts on developing mock casualty incidents that train both district personnel and first responders on topics such as extrication, fuel and fires. He collaborated with Wilson last summer to present a smoke in the school bus class at STN EXPO West in Reno, Nevada.

He added that districts providing such training, could expect to incur expenses, such as hiring a consultant to teach towing old school buses, acquiring school buses to cut up and any facility fees unless a school site is used. There are also some logistical items such as water, food, tent, chairs, etc., as needed. He also noted that fire departments wouldn’t charge to compensate for their firefighter salaries if they get to cut up a bus in training.

The STN EXPO West conference in Reno, Nevada will open July 10 with a half-day seminar on best practices for training school bus drivers to respond to security threats. The session is led by Jim Levine, president and CEO of Levine Security Services, which produces the School Transportation Active-Threat Response Training, or S.T.A.R.T.

“These grants are golden opportunities for school transportation professionals to gain the advanced safety training we offer,” he added. “We did two email campaigns to state school transportation directors as well as sending out to our database of transportation and school officials announcing both grants.”

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Related: Security Expert Shares Key Indicators of Violence for School Transportation Safety
Related: Setting Fires Lands Former Utah School Bus Driver in Federal Prison
Related: STN EXPO General Session: Security Tabletop Exercise

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We examine a school bus shooting in Pennsylvania, how the federal BUILD 250 Act would cut Safe Streets and Roads for All funding, and transportation’s role in student absenteeism.

Speaker, author and branding expert Bruce Turkel shares why it’s important for school bus operations to build a brand in an age of increasing multi-modality, discusses leveraging emotions over facts to reach the right audience, and previews his musical STN EXPO West training in July.

Read more about operations.

This episode is brought to you by Transfinder.

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Stream, subscribe and download the School Transportation Nation podcast on Apple Podcasts, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Spotify and YouTube.

The post (STN Podcast E310) The School Bus Ecosystem: Adapting to Multi-modality & Building a Brand appeared first on School Transportation News.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Inspector General says lessons from the first Clean School Bus rebates and grant rounds should inform future funding, especially as $2.37 billion remains available.

EPA is expected to announce the next CSBP funding rounds later this month or in June.

Ask a transportation director what makes a clean school bus project successful, and the likely answer goes beyond the bus itself. Directors share the importance of coordinating with utilities, ensuring charging infrastructure is ready, managing vendor timelines, or tracking federal and state funds.

A new summary report from the EPA Office of Inspector General, released April 1, points to that same balancing act. The report stated that the EPA has made improvements to the CSBP since its first rebate round in 2022. Earlier weaknesses in application review, recipient verification and fund management should continue to inform how the agency awards future dollars.

The report reviewed five prior EPA Office of Inspector General reports related to the agency’s management of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding for the 2022 Clean School Bus Rebates program. It identified two overarching issues: The application and selection process, and the management of funds. The summary report does not include new recommendations, but the OIG said the findings could help guide EPA decision-making for future CSBP awards, especially as money is still on the table.

Congress provided $5 billion over five years through IIJA to replace older diesel school buses with cleaner models, including propane, compressed natural gas and zero-emission buses. EPA has described the program as a way to reduce emissions in buses, loading zones and the communities they serve.

Report Highlights Rebate, Grant Awards to Date

At the beginning of fiscal year 2026, the CSBP had $2.37 billion remaining. As of February, EPA said it intends to revamp the program and issued a Request for Information seeking input from fleet operators, manufacturers, school officials and energy producers. The comment period closed April 6. The 146 filed comments included those from all major OEMs, dozens of school districts and other concerned citizens.

As of last November, EPA had awarded $865 million through the 2022 rebate program to 368 school districts for 2,328 replacement buses. The 2023 grant program awarded $950 million to 65 recipients for 2,696 buses, while the 2023 rebate program awarded $815 million to 458 school districts for 3,241 buses. All awards leaning heavily toward electric school buses. Find the breakdown of fuel funding on STN’s Green Bus Resources page.

But the EPA Inspector General said the initial process lacked adequate controls to verify certain applicant and bus eligibility information. Prior reports found EPA did not require enough documentation to verify applicant identity or the accuracy of information submitted, and applicants were not required to directly attest to the truthfulness of their applications. The OIG also said the agency had not established verification protocols before awarding funds.

That matters for districts because federal clean bus projects often require coordination among multiple parties, including school systems, contractors, original equipment manufacturers, utilities and infrastructure providers. The OIG noted that some eligible contractors were allowed to apply or initiate applications on behalf of eligible entities without their knowledge.

Another concern centered on whether local conditions were adequately considered, particularly for zero-emission buses. Under the IIJA, EPA must consider factors such as route length and weather conditions when awarding clean school bus funds. The OIG said prior reports found EPA was not ensuring applicants seeking electric buses had suitable local conditions, and it also cited utility delays as a potential risk to timely deployment.

Fund management was another issue flagged by the OIG. The report said EPA did not adequately monitor bus deployment status or recipient use of 2022 rebate funds, despite previously committing to do so. It also found that 2022 guidance did not clearly indicated for recipients whether CSBP funds should be kept in separate accounts, whether interest could be earned on those funds, or how any interest could be used.

According to the OIG, some recipients kept CSBP awards in accounts that included other funds, which increased the risk that program money could be used for other purposes.

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Related: EPA ‘Revamping’ Clean School Bus Program
Related: Future of Clean School Bus Program?
Related: Updated: EPA Seeks to Expand Fuel Scope of Clean School Bus Program
Related: Inspector General Report Cites Inefficiencies in EPA Clean School Bus Program
Related: EPA Investigator General Cites Clean School Bus Program Inefficiencies, Utility Delays

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EPA has since made changes. For the 2023 rebate round, the agency required electric bus applicants to submit a Utility Partnership Agreement verifying that districts had notified their local utility. EPA also updated guidance to require recipients to manage funds so they would not accrue interest, keep funds in separate accounts and use them only for eligible expenses. In 2024, EPA added a School Board Awareness Certification requiring applicants to verify that school boards were notified of intended program participation.

The OIG said EPA has completed corrective actions addressing several prior recommendations and was still implementing others. The report states that the agency had completed, or was in the process of implementing, corrective actions for all 11 prior recommendations reviewed.

EPA also reported taking additional oversight steps beginning in February 2025, including site visits to rebate recipients, reviews of concerns related to use of funds and weekly project status reports to the chief financial officer.

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