Supplemental Impact Aid Flexibility Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 2959, the Supplemental Impact Aid Flexibility Act. This bill would allow school districts participating in the Impact Aid program to use previously reported student headcounts on their Impact Aid applications for the 2022-2023 school year.

Impact Aid supplements funding for schools and students in areas that collect less in local property taxes due to the Federal Government's presence. School districts that receive Impact Aid payments include those with military bases, Indian reservations, and Federal low-income housing in or near the school district.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a big toll on school districts and communities across the country. It is especially difficult for federally impacted school districts to calculate headcounts due to fluctuations during the pandemic.

Headcounts determine how much aid more than 1,000 federally impacted school districts receive. That aid helps pay for staff salaries, bussing, technology, and other educational supports and services for students. This bill ensures the Impact Aid recipients will not be affected negatively by the pandemic and temporary falling enrollment that have resulted. This frees up valuable time and resources to help students, while schools maintain a reliable source of funding as they address the academic, social, emotional, and safety needs of the students.

This bill will have no impact on government spending because Impact Aid is a discretionary program, and its funding level is established through the annual appropriations process.

The trade association for Impact Aid school districts, the National Association for Federally Impacted Schools, is strongly supportive of this bill.

This bill is similar to the one signed into law by President Trump on December 4, 2020.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support S. 2959, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Owens for yielding and for his leadership on this issue.

I rise today in support of the Supplemental Impact Aid Flexibility Act. The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on our school systems and the way students are learning, both in and out of the classroom. Many parents have made the decision to homeschool their children due to uncertainty around vaccine and mask mandates in schools. With many resources of local educational agencies dedicated to fighting the pandemic, it has also become a burden on them to maintain an accurate count of federally connected students.

I am grateful for the bipartisan leadership today of Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Foxx, who support this legislation. This bill takes proactive measures to ensuring that teachers and students are adequately supported when returning to the classroom. By allowing local educational agencies to use the same number of federally connected students that they enrolled on their fiscal year '22 applications as they do fiscal year '23 applications, we can allow them to focus on recovering from the pandemic and serve the children of our United States servicemembers adequately.

As a representative of Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, and also nearby Fort Jackson in Georgia, ably represented by Congressman Rick Allen, we have multiple beneficiaries of Impact Aid funding. I am grateful to support this legislation and encourage my colleagues to do the same.

The Supplemental Impact Aid Flexibility Act ensures that students and schools relying on Impact Aid will not be affected negatively by the pandemic.

Specifically, the bill allows schools to use their previously reported headcounts so that services students rely on will continue. This frees up administrators to use their valuable time and resources addressing the educational needs of the students.

Students in over 1,000 federally impacted districts deserve the resources they receive from the Impact Aid program. This aid helps pay for a wide range of services that students rely on from bussing and technology to educational support services.

I encourage my colleagues to support S. 2959, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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