20 U.S.C. § 7901 — Maintenance of effort

(a) A local educational agency can get money under a covered program for a fiscal year only if the State finds that its spending — either its combined effort per student or its total expenditures on free public education — for the year before was at least 90 percent of what it spent two years before, subject to subsection (b). (b) (1) The State must cut the agency's funding by the exact percentage it falls short of that 90 percent mark (using whichever way of measuring — effort per student or total spending — is better for the agency), but only if the agency also failed to meet the 90 percent mark in at least one of the five years before that. (2) If a reduced amount is used one year, it cannot be used as the baseline for figuring the requirement in later years. (c) The Secretary may waive these requirements if fair, because of: (1) unusual or uncontrollable circumstances, like a natural disaster or a change in how the local agency is organized; or (2) a sharp drop in the local agency's money.