EL PASO -- School district leaders are afraid that federal stimulus money they hoped to use for construction and maintenance will not reach them but rather help the state save money.

That is why El Paso district Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia, Ysleta district Superintendent Michael Zolkoski and leaders of 10 other Texas districts have asked Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to intervene.

The group argues that Texas legislators are attempting to use federal money from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to pay for education initiatives that should have already been included in the state's budget.

Texas representatives initially planned to use money from the state budget to provide about $1.9 billion for districts with growing enrollment and an additional $1.3 billion for textbooks and technology.

When finalizing a budget last week, senators instead decided to pay for those initiatives with $3.2 billion in federal stimulus money that was earmarked for education.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, opposed the decision, which is not final. The Texas House of Representatives must also vote on a budget April 17. The two groups will then compromise before agreeing to a final budget.

Some senators claim that the state is experiencing
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a downturn in tax revenue and will not be able to pay for some of the plans for education without dipping into the state's rainy day fund, the state's reserve fund.

School district administrators, however, said that over the next two years, the state plans to increase its $6 billion rainy day fund to $9.8 billion and sacrifice needed improvements for districts.

"It is not as if they are hurting in any way," said Jimmy Loredo, associate superintendent of finance for Ysleta. "They just want to hold on and hoard that money that should flow to the school districts. That is what is disheartening about this whole thing,"

Education Commissioner Robert Scott said during a committee hearing Wednesday that typically, state money could not be replaced with federal dollars to pay for other programs or departments in the budget.

But federal guidelines for the stimulus money allow states more leeway when planning their budgets, Scott said.

"They are allowing states to use those funds to fill the gaps in your budget," he said. "There are different rules now than we would normally look at in terms of federal funds. Normally, it's cut and dry."

Senators did not specifically say whether the state money initially planned for education was used to fund other programs such as transportation and law enforcement.

The budget proposal includes a $600 million increase in highway construction and maintenance, along with $2.2 billion in federal stimulus money for roads. It also includes $600 million for cancer research and prevention.

Border security efforts that have been promoted by Gov. Rick Perry are scheduled to receive nearly $113 million in the budget, plus an additional $23.6 million in federal stimulus money.

State Sen. Steve Ogden, chairman of the Senate's budget-writing Finance Committee, said lawmakers did their best to understand and abide by rules in what he said was "poorly written" federal legislation.

"There was no effort whatsoever to divert money from programs Congress intended us to fund with federal stimulus money," Ogden said during debate last week on the Senate floor.

Rules for using the stimulus money, he said, do not require the state to spend any or all of its reserve funds.

Ogden said lawmakers were especially careful because if they were wrong in using $3.2 billion of stimulus money for education and found out after the budget was approved, the Legislature would probably have to reconvene in special session to fix the problem and find money to send to schools.

El Paso Superintendent Garcia said his district estimated that it would have received an additional $51 million.

He said the district planned to use some of the money to renovate 37 science and math labs to pay for an unfunded state mandate that requires students to take four years of math and science.

Garcia said the district's list of improvements included replacing air conditioners, repairing roofs and updating classrooms.

"This is not in the spirit of what President Obama wanted to do," Garcia said. "He intended for the money to flow down to grass roots level to put people to work and help our children."