LEWISTON — Lewiston Public Schools’ grant amounts from the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) for the upcoming school year were announced Monday during a School Committee meeting.

ESEA is a federal statute that provides funds and sets policy for elementary and secondary education. There are four different funding categories within the ESEA grants: Title I, Title II, Title III and Title IV.

“It’s basically a group that you apply for together and receive together,” Jennifer Darigan, Lewiston Public Schools’ federal program coordinator, said.

Darigan explained how the ESEA money is separate from the district’s current operating budget.

“On a basic level, the federal funds that were discussed at (Monday) night’s meeting are grants,” Darigan said. “They are allocation grants that the state offers to (school) districts in Maine. There’s an application process for the funds and an approval process, and then use of funds happens after all of that is completed.”

Darigan confirmed that the grant funding has no implications for the Lewiston taxpayers. “These are federal programs — the money comes directly from the U.S. Department of Education,” Darigan said.

The allocation amounts are set ahead of each school year based on census data, student enrollment numbers and poverty percentage in every school district.

“In some of the larger cities in Maine, the allocation amounts are based on census, but ultimately it’s student enrollment and poverty percentage that drive the amount of funding each district in Maine receives,” Darigan said. “At this time, Lewiston (Public Schools) is the highest receiver of federal funds in the state of Maine.”

What does each title mean?

Maine’s Department of Education outlines different aims for each category within the ESEA grants. Simply put, each category or title provides funding for a certain set of goals; Title I addresses the needs of disadvantaged students, Title II supports professional development for educators, Title III helps multilingual learners, Title IV promotes a well-rounded education and safe schools.

According to the amounts announced for the upcoming school year, Lewiston’s Title I funding is down almost $66,000 — $3.49 million from last year’s $3.56 million. The rest of the titles, II, III and IV are up from last year.

What does the Title I decrease mean for the district?

“We have a lot of teaching and support staff positions that are paid for with federal money. Title I takes on the greatest load of that as it is our largest grant,” Darigan said. “The cost of staff raises every year. Keeping the same number of staff on our Title I budget is challenging to do when the cost of staff increases and the allocation decreases.”

The $66,000 decrease in the grant amount takes away the buffer some schools might have had in the past. “With a decrease in Title I, we are losing something,” Darigan said. “On some school level budgets, it could be a position. On some others, it may be that there are less instructional supply funds available or less professional developments funds. That does differ across each one of our Title I schools.”

All district schools receive Title I funding except Lewiston High School, Darigan said.

What caused the district’s Title I decrease for the next school year?

“Our Title I allocation was reduced because the state of Maine’s overall allocation was reduced as well,” Darigan said. “The allocation goes from the federal government to the state of Maine as a pass-through, and then the state pushes it out to districts.”

In a nutshell, the state of Maine received less ESEA funds for the upcoming school year than the year prior. With Lewiston receiving the highest amount of ESEA funds within the state, the Title I cut was more pronounced.

“If other states across the nation have increased poverty percentage at a higher rate than the state of Maine, then other states would receive a higher amount and Maine would see receive a lower amount,” Darigan said. “Even if Maine’s poverty percentage did increase, if other states increased at a higher rate, that’s going to impact the state level allocations.”

“Even up to last week, those numbers were kind of going up a little, going down a little, and then we finally got notification of final allocations,” Darigan said. As such, the district has had no role in determining the grant amounts.

“I do believe it was last Thursday they were finalized for districts. We now know what the numbers we have are and we can ensure that our budgets align with that,” Darigan added.

“The other titles all increased, which was great news. We have been able to stay pretty steady with our activities that we hope to pay for with title funds. It’s very often that we use a few different funding sources to get to the outcome,” Darigan said. “A few different funding sources all chip in so that something can come to fruition. Our title funds do that type of work very often.”