Supplemental Impact Aid Flexibility Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bipartisan Impact Aid Flexibility Act, S. 2959, which is a companion bill to H. 6126, which I introduced on December 2, 2021. I thank Chairman Scott and Ranking Member Foxx, and her representative this evening, Mr. Owens, of the Education and Labor Committee, and the committee staff for accelerating consideration of this important measure which provides Federal support to 11 million K-12 schoolchildren across America, and whose passage is very time sensitive, which I will explain in a minute.

Mr. Speaker, Federal Impact Aid is our Nation's oldest K-12 Federal education program. Impact Aid has its origins in 1821 when Congress first authorized support for schools to educate military dependent children.

In 1934, Congress passed the Johnson-O'Malley Act, which extended help to school districts located at federally recognized Tribal lands. Congress recognized that, like military school districts, kids residing on Native American Tribal lands, which were not subject to State or local taxation to fund schools, deserved assistance.

In 1950, President Harry Truman signed into law the statutory framework for Impact Aid which still stands today. Impact Aid is an important statement to communities that host children who reside in and are connected to Federal property and facilities, namely, that the Nation will not force them to bear an unfair disproportionate cost to public education.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to represent a district with two of those host communities, Groton and Ledyard, Connecticut. Groton is the home to our Nation's oldest Navy submarine base with approximately 9,000 sailors and officers who work every day to protect our Nation. Ledyard is the town next door where many personnel live. Groton has over 1,000 Navy kids, and Ledyard has 850. Ledyard is also the site of the Mashantucket Tribal Nation, many of whose children attend Ledyard schools. Impact Aid is critical to these towns' school budgets.

The bill before us addresses an urgent logistical problem with Impact Aid, that, unless we act, will harm military and Tribal districts all across the country, namely, the obstacle created by COVID, to get an accurate headcount of eligible students that must be filed with the U.S. Department of Education by January 31, 12 days from now. And that, again, is the time-sensitive urgency this evening. Military and Tribal districts across the country have reported that COVID restrictions have slowed down the paperwork process, and this hindrance will result in an undercount, and thus, an artificially low Federal reimbursement.

The Impact Aid Flexibility Act will solve this problem in an elegant way by simply carrying over last year's student census, thus ensuring no Impact Aid district will be harmed financially. This is a 1-year fix, the same as the fix the last Congress passed in December 2020, the Impact Aid Coronavirus Relief Act, which I sponsored with my Republican colleague, Dusty Johnson of South Dakota.

Mr. Speaker, this vote is being watched nervously by school officials and military staff all across the Nation, such as Groton school superintendent, Susan Austin, Ledyard superintendent, Jason Hartling, and Miranda Chapman, the Navy School liaison officer at the Groton SUBASE, New London, who have worked with the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools, and I salute them and all their colleagues across the country for their work raising this issue before Congress.

The bill before us has already passed the U.S. Senate unanimously and has the support of the Biden administration. It is a bill that keeps the promise to host communities that a high-quality education will not be denied because of military service or Tribal recognition.

I urge the House to pass this bill tonight with an overwhelming vote of confidence and thanks for those who wear the uniform of this country and our Tribal nations and their families.

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