Earlier this week Gov. Phil Murphy responded to unwelcome news that the Trump Administration’s Education Department was clawing back $85 million from New Jersey’s unspent Covid relief funds intended to address learning loss. A mere month ago the U.S. ED had given New Jersey and 40 other states a one-year extension to spend down the funds; this update to an established timeline upended school district plans.

In his response, Murphy called the demand to return funds (which represent about 2.5% of NJ’s total pot of 3.8 billion in emergency education money)) “reckless and irresponsible, allowing us very little time for contingency plans. New Jersey is proud of its best-in-the-nation public school system and we will do everything we can to restore this funding and maintain our reputation for excellence in public education.” He concluded, “at a time of unprecedented chaos and uncertainty at the federal level, Washington is failing the next generation.”

Now the U.S. ED has responded on the platform formerly known as Twitter, claiming the Governor “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” and “his COVID slush fund is over.” In a follow-up, the ED says NJ was going to spend the $85 million on custom window projects and HVAC upgrades.

Tagging Murphy, the ED continues, “you are encouraged to submit an appeal to explain how a particular project’s extension is necessary to mitigate the effects of COVID on American students’ education. We look forward to reviewing these requests.”

The always astute Chad Aldeman has this to say:

“You might argue that schools should have planned better and spent the money faster. After all, not every state asked for a spending extension. That’s a reasonable point… except that these extensions were telegraphed years in advance and were standard practice for earlier pots of money. Some smart policy advocates actually recommended schools take advantage of the additional time in order to continue delivering services like tutoring or execute on more complicated construction projects.

To put it mildly, this is a dumb, short-sighted decision from the Trump Administration. It will abruptly cut off important services for kids and throw state and district budgets into unnecessary turmoil.”

Here is the full exchange: