A planned middle school at the Fort Campbell Army base in Kentucky could be in limbo after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency that may allow him to reallocate funds for his proposed border wall.
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that the $62 million project to construct Fort Campbell Middle School near the Tennessee-Kentucky border was one of hundreds of military projects included in the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019.
But the project could be on the chopping block.
Trump announced that to secure funding to build a border wall, he would tap into a variety of government budgets, including $3.6 billion in military construction money.
The Pentagon said in a statement that while the president can reallocate funds, the Defense Department would play a hand in the spending.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has indicated he has problems with the emergency declaration.
"I’m disappointed with both the massive, bloated, secretive bill that just passed and with the president’s intention to declare an emergency to build a wall," Paul tweeted last week.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, also of Kentucky, says of the potential halt to the middle school's construction: “Right now it’s a hypothetical, because the Acting Sec of Defense hasn’t determined what specific funds will be used."
