The three largest Fresno-area school districts received more than $750 million in federal pandemic recovery funding and faced a deadline of Sept. 30 to spend or commit funds from the third round of funding.

According to the Edunonics Lab database maintained by Georgetown University, as of Aug. 28 two of those districts still had significant unspent revenues from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief program, or ESSER III.

The database is in the process of being updated as states report spending. The Edunomics Lab database includes data from the California Department of Education that was updated as of June 30. The department did not immediately respond to a query Monday about when its data will be updated.

Spokespeople for the three local districts told GV Wire that the remaining funding has either been spent or encumbered, or that their district was seeking an extension to the January 2025 spending deadline.

The Edunomics Lab reported that Fresno Unified was allocated a total of $605,590,724 in ESSERs I, II, and III, and had spent its entire allocations in ESSERs I and II but still had 29.6% left of its $388,900,983 ESSER III allocation.

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FUSD Seeks Extension

District spokeswoman AJ Kato confirmed that the district is spending down its ESSER III funds but expects to meet the January spending deadline for nearly all the allocation.

Out of its three ESSER allocations, the district has spent $568,783,555, has encumbered and expects to spend $26,861,302 by the January deadline, and has sought an extension for spending $9,945,867 because of construction delays, Kato said.

“It’s part of a $29 million project for student support spaces, and the vendor has had a procurement issue with certain components,” she said.

Central, Clovis Say They Exhausted Their Allocations

The Edunomics Lab database reported that Central Unified was allocated $62,747,867 in the three ESSER rounds and had spent $47,975,448. The district spent all its ESSER I allocation, all but .13% of the ESSER II allocation, and 63.4% of its ESSER III allocation by the state’s last update in June.

Interim district spokesman Olegario Tapia said all the ESSER III funds were spent on time and were allocated “to support allowable schools, focusing on student well-being and academic intervention.”

Clovis Unified received a total allocation of $85,952,682 and had spent all of its first two allocations and 98.6% of its ESSER III funds, according to the Edunomics Lab database. District spokeswoman Kelly Avants said the district had spent its entire allocation by Sept. 30.