Hofmeister launches online portal to track school districts' use of federal relief funds

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) - Oklahomans can now track school districts' use of federal COVID relief funds with a new online portal.

Outgoing State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister announced the new portal on Friday. She says the portal makes it easy for Oklahomans to see where the money has gone and where it is going.

“We’re very proud of our highly successful distribution of federal relief funds in Oklahoma,” Hofmeister said. “The timely and appropriate expenditure of these dollars is critical to help Oklahoma families and educators. Otherwise, the funds would have to be returned without benefit to Oklahomans. This portal makes it convenient for people to review where those dollars have gone and are going.”

According to Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE), approximately 58% has been spent down of the $2.3 billion the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) assigned to Oklahoma to support students during the pandemic.

USDE says Oklahoma's percentage spent is higher than all but three other states: Arkansas, Hawaii and Iowa.

According to OSDE, there has been three federal tranches: The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, also known as ESSER I; the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriation (CRRSA) Act, ESSER II; and the American Rescue Plan (ARP), ESSER III.

So far, the OSDE says 99.96% of ESSER I funds ($144.80 million), 93.64% of ESSER II funds ($560.50 million) and 37.58% ($505.50 million) of the nearly $1.5 billion of ESSER III funds have been used.

For more information, visit the ESSER Dashboard portal or OSDE's website.