The other day a colleague of mine and a very reliable source informed me that the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) were getting new uniforms for their sports teams. Financing came from the abundance of cash contained in a COVID relief bill approved by Congress and signed into law back in March by Joe Biden.

MPS teams generally are not as nattily attired as their counterparts in the suburbs. Even so, at first blush I was more than a bit surprised that COVID $$$ was being used to put socks on soccer players. But it soon sunk in who and what we’re dealing with here, and the story was and turned out to be very plausible.

The Associated Press performed a flagrant act of journalism:

One Wisconsin school district built a new football field. In Iowa, a high school weight room is getting a renovation. Another in Kentucky is replacing two outdoor tracks — all of this funded by the billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief Congress sent to schools this year.

The money is part of a $123 billion infusion intended to help schools reopen and recover from the pandemic. But with few limits on how the funding can be spent, The Associated Press found that some districts have used large portions to cover athletics projects they couldn’t previously afford.

Read the entire AP article here.