Stimulus money has provided temporary safety net for Monroe County schools

Federal stimulus funding is a lifeline that so far has kept Hoosier schools from plummeting off a financial cliff.

The Monroe County Community School Corp. has received or will receive a total of $11 million in stimulus dollars, about $6 million of which was funneled through the state last year to replace Indiana’s regular education general fund allocations that had been hit hard by the recession. That money funded MCCSC operations for about a month and a half; without it, the corporation would already have had to cut that much from its budget for the current school year. The other $5 million going to the corporation will pay for specific programs, not fund general operations, over the next two years.

As worrisome as recent discussions of budget cuts have been to school patrons, budget shortfalls would have been a lot worse without stimulus funds. With no more stimulus money in the pipeline and a feeble economy failing to refill state coffers, officials now worry that schools will soon lose their tenuous hold on solid ground and slip off the precipice.