The Indiana Department of Education launches a database to track schools’ spending of pandemic relief funding. The state health department shuts down vaccine and testing sites during the winter storm. And statewide COVID-19 cases are down.

Indianapolis’ rental assistance program is now over a year old and tens of millions have been distributed to help renters impacted by the pandemic.

Programs including Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) ended on Sept. 4.

Participants will have access to coaching via online video calls, phone calls, or texts and can receive help for up to four months.

In an example of how states are casting for ways to spend the federal influx, Indiana's budget negotiators wrote in $75 million for the Career Accelerator Program -- nearly triple the $27 million going to a 2 percent increase for the state's higher education system.

The Indiana Supreme Court this past week turned down an emergency petition filed by advocates for low-income families.

The package provides schools with a direct line to roughly four times the amount of money than the original CARES Act. Many plan to use the funding to address learning loss and other ongoing needs exacerbated by the pandemic.

Throughout the pandemic, Indiana paid out all of the money it had -- a little less than $1 billion -- in a rainy day fund meant for unemployed workers. To continue paying unemployment benefits, the state began borrowing money from the federal government.

Without an extension the money must be spent on expenses directly related to the pandemic incurred by the end of December.