The Georgia Department of Education confirmed this week that the Trump administration released federal funding for after-school programs after state officials criticized the government for withholding the money. 

The government had frozen education-related funding, including millions for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, which was expected to be released at the beginning of the month but was withheld until this week, according to the New Brunswick News. 

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Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), one of Georgia’s two Democratic senators who is in a tough battle for reelection, took jabs at the Trump White House on Thursday, stating that the government reversed course on the funding and released all the funding previously set to go to the state. 

“These funds, which represent long-standing investments in K–12 and adult education, support a wide range of priorities such as teacher recruitment, afterschool programs, English learner instruction, school-based mental health services, academic enrichment, and adult education and family literacy,” Ossoff previously wrote.

Republicans had also protested the funding freeze. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who chairs the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees education spending, led a letter to the Trump administration earlier this month in which 10 GOP lawmakers urged the funds to be released. 

“We share your concern about taxpayer money going to fund radical left-wing programs,” the senators wrote in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget that commented on over $6 billion in education funding already appropriated by Congress to states earlier this year. “However, we do not believe that is happening with these funds.”

Following the pressure campaign, the Education Department announced last Friday it would release just over $1 billion of the funds, although Georgia raised the alarm when several days elapsed without money. 

Part of the funding, including over $40 million for Georgia’s 21st Century Community Learning Centers program, was released Monday evening, according to the Savannah Morning News. After-school initiatives and mental health programs account for approximately 14.8% of Georgia’s federal education funding.

Two dozen states, led by California, filed a lawsuit challenging the July 1 funding freeze of over $6 billion last week. Georgia did not join the lawsuit, although it stood to lose approximately $200 million in funding. 

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State school Superintendent Richard Woods had been calling on the federal government to release the money since early July.

“I deeply believe in fiscal responsibility, which means evaluating the use of funds and seeking out efficiencies, but also means being responsible — releasing funds already approved by Congress and signed by President Trump,” he said on July 7.