Superintendent Dr. Steven Bornay presented the School City of East Chicago Board of Trustees with preliminary federal Title I–IV allocations for the 2025–26 grant year and a timeline for state review, while urging caution because final award letters had not yet been issued.

Bornay said the district’s preliminary Title allocations include Title I: $3,677,823.15; Title II: $286,000.432 (transcript formatting); Title III: $91,000.91866; and Title IV: $284,106.23, for a total preliminary Title allocation of $4,340,234.53. He told the board the district’s broader grant portfolio is “somewhere around $5,300,000 in grant funding,” and showed a pie chart that reflected Title I as the largest single federal grant.

The superintendent described the submission and IDOE review process: a pre‑application for Titles I, II and IV was filed 06/30/2025, IDOE acknowledged receipt Aug. 5, and the district applied for Ed‑Flex waivers. Bornay said Ed‑Flex waiver #4 (which expands Title IV spending flexibility when over $30,000 in grant funds) was approved Aug. 13; a later notice dated Oct. 3 indicated Ed‑Flex waiver #2 had been approved as well. He summarized IDOE’s two‑tier review (an initial reader in tier 1 and director review in tier 2) and said Title I and Title III were in tier 1 review at the time of the presentation.

Bornay reviewed prior years’ application performance to give context. He said the district experienced multiple resubmissions for past Title I applications — for example, an application started 07/11/2021 and finally approved 03/29/2022 after several rounds, and another cycle beginning 10/17/2022 required multiple resubmissions before final approval 04/21/2023. He acknowledged past forfeitures of federal funds, naming amounts of approximately $660,653.99 and $295,041.55 in earlier years.

On remaining balances, Bornay said the district had an awarded/allocated Title I amount of $3,813,551.73 for the 2025 grant year and a remaining balance of $689,879.76 that had been encumbered and must be liquidated by Dec. 15, 2025. He said the district intended to encumber and liquidate remaining balances for other open grant years and that, as of Nov. 1, 2025, “there are no funds in jeopardy of being forfeited.”

Asked about operational impacts, Bornay said the corporation implemented a hiring freeze at the start of the school year for some grant‑funded positions, paused filling certain vacancies, and later resumed hiring for paraprofessionals and non‑grant‑funded roles after evaluating needs with the CFO and human resources. He acknowledged that borrowing from operations against anticipated federal reimbursements is a practice the district has used: “we have traditionally continued to run schools by borrowing from the operations fund,” he said, adding that the approach carries uncertainty because final awards are not guaranteed.

Bornay also told trustees the IDOE director of federal grants resigned Sept. 5, which had delayed some tier‑2 approvals statewide; he said that, in the Title directors’ meeting, many districts had not yet received final Title I approvals. He recommended the finance committee and board follow up on technical and timing questions in a future session.

Next procedural steps: Bornay said the district would continue to track tier‑2 review and award letters, encumber remaining balances per deadlines, and address fiscal questions at the finance committee before returning to the full board.