MIDLAND, Mich. — A new report found that Michigan school districts spent their Covid-19 funds similarly to how they spend their general budget, with nearly half of the funds spent on employee compensation and benefits. The report, released today by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, breaks down how school districts have spent $2.5 billion of the $6 billion in federal pandemic aid between the 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years.

In an effort to help address the challenges of the government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress distributed unprecedented amounts of money to public schools across the country from March 2020 to March 2021. Michigan schools received $6 billion total, with each district receiving varying amounts, ranging from about $500 extra per student to as much as $50,000 per pupil. School districts serving the poorest students received the largest amounts.

Across all three school years, employee salaries and benefits made up 47% of total pandemic relief expenditures. Employee compensation is consistently the largest portion of school budgets, so the additional spending follows that trend.

Despite spending $1.2 billion of Covid aid on personnel, staffing levels only increased by 3%. This suggests that much of this extra spending on employee compensation took the form of raises for existing employees rather than hiring new staff.

A third of the funds were spent on services and supplies. One-fifth of Covid funds went towards purchasing services, which is when school districts contract with outside service providers for things like custodial services, transportation or tutoring. Districts usually spend 11% of their budgets on these services, suggesting that reliance on third-party vendors increased.

Supplies accounted for 16% of Covid relief spending. This is a broad category, as it can cover anything from energy costs to testing materials. The remaining funds were spent on capital costs and a variety of relatively minor things.

The report also looked at how charter schools and conventional public schools spent their funds differently. The data suggests that charter schools focused more resources addressing learning losses based on the percentage spent on instructional services.

“It’s been four years since the pandemic began and Michigan students are still trying to catch up,” said Cassidy Syftestad Klutts, author of the report and doctoral fellow at the University of Arkansas. “School districts have one school year left to spend the remaining $3.5 billion. It will be interesting to see how well they use these resources to overcome learning loss and stabilize the classroom.”

Read the full report here.