South Florida cities rush to spend COVID relief money
Cities in Miami-Dade County are requesting COVID-19 relief money for police and fire salaries as a Dec. 30 deadline approaches to allocate CARES Act money.
With the deadline to allocate COVID-19 relief funds less than a week away, local governments across Miami-Dade County are scrambling to make sure they don’t leave money on the table.
They’re giving out more grocery gift cards. They’re distributing rent and mortgage assistance. They’re even getting reimbursed for costs with no direct connection to the pandemic — namely, salaries for police and firefighters dating back to
March.
It’s all part of a mad dash to the Dec. 30 deadline for Miami
Dade to distribute $474 million in CARES Act funds. As of Dec. 7, only about half of that money had been spent with more in the pipeline.
Among the outstanding amount was $50 million from a $75 million pot intended to reimburse municipalities for COVID-related costs.
“It doesn’t look like it’s working out very well,” said Joseph Corradino, the mayor of Pinecrest and a member of the Miami-Dade League of Cities executive board. “It looks like the deadline is getting short for everybody to get their act together.”
The requests for police and fire salary reimbursements are part of a last-ditch effort for cities to get as much CARES Act money as they can. Miami-Dade’s 34 municipalities have sparred with the county over the funds since the summer, when then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez slashed a planned $135 million allocation to cities to just $30 million before agreeing to a $100 million compromise.
Since then, some city leaders have complained that they had to rush to get relief programs off the ground. Money that isn’t spent by the cities
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I’M TELLING YOU AHEAD OF TIME, WE’RE GONNA LEAVE A LOT OF MONEY ON THE TABLE.
Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez
in 2020 could end up back in the county’s hands.
“I think the end game was for cities to have very little time to use this money for their communities,” Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernandez said at a Nov. 24 council meeting. “I’m telling you ahead of time, we’re gonna leave a lot of money on the table.”
Because the federal government only provided CARES Act funds to government bodies that represent over 500,000 people, the county was the only agency in Miami-Dade to get the money directly.
A new $900 billion coronavirus relief bill passed by Congress on Monday would extend the deadline for local governments to spend CARES money by a year, although it wouldn’t give them additional funds. President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the legislation, meaning the Dec. 30 deadline is still the law for now.
NEW RULES MEAN MORE FOR POLICE
In late November, the federal government issued new guidance that said cities no longer needed to present documents to justify the use of CARES Act dollars for public safety workers.
Instead, police and fire salaries “are deemed significantly COVID-19 related, thereby alleviating the need for extra paperwork such as duty rosters [and] daily activity reports,” Miami-Dade’s chief financial officer Edward Marquez said in a Dec. 7 memo.
Previously, cities in Miami-Dade had only sought reimbursement for police and firefighter hours that they could show was somehow connected to the fight against COVID.
But now, “it can be assumed that public safety personnel such as police and fire departments are doing COVID-related activities for any hours actually worked in the eligible period of March 1 [to] December 30,” Andre McIntosh, a consultant for Hagerty who is helping the county with CARES administration, told city officials in a Dec. 7 email.
Marquez and McIntosh declined to comment Wednesday on how much money cities have already requested and received to cover police and fire department salaries with CARES Act funds. But interviews with city officials suggest the requests are rolling in.
“The only money we went back to the county for was to pay for police expenses,” said Corradino, the Pinecrest mayor.
Sunny Isles Beach was initially allocated about $2.5 million in reimbursements for past and anticipated expenses, but officials later realized not all of that money would be spent. So they asked the county to reallocate $360,000 to partially cover the salaries of public
safety workers, according to city finance director Tiffany Neely.
The county isn’t letting cities request reimbursements beyond what they initially projected in late October, but they can reallocate funds to account for shifting priorities or money that wasn’t spent.
“Your total … allocations can not increase as the full $75 million allocation has been spoken for,” McIntosh told city officials. “But you may make use of this convenience by replacing any of your currently approved projects, or using any unused portions of those projects, to submit police time, for example, to
draw down those funds.”
CITIES STRUGGLE TO COMPLY
Earlier this month, the Miami-Dade County Commission voted to let cities dip into the $75 million reimbursement fund to pay for COVID relief programs, such as grocery store gift cards and rent and mortgage relief.
Those programs were initially targeted by a separate $25 million fund, but Commissioner Keon Hardemon, who sponsored the measure, said cities were struggling to comply with the rules established for the $25 million pot. He criticized the county’s approach on CARES allocations for cities.
“It appears we never intended the cities to spend” the dollars allocated by Miami-Dade, said Hardemon, a former city commissioner in Miami who took county office last month. “I know that’s a hard thing for everybody to hear.”
There was no indication Wednesday that cities have taken advantage of Hardemon’s resolution and utilized the $75 million pot for additional COVID relief programs. That may be because of the impending deadline and the substantial work required for programs like gift card giveaways and rent assistance.
Requesting reimbursements for public safety salaries, on the other hand, requires less time and effort, especially in light of the new federal guidance.
“Time is getting tight,” Corradino said, adding that some cities have had to “create additional bureaucracies” or retain outside consultants to administer their CARES programs.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much of the $25 million fund cities have yet to spend. Some cities say they’ve managed to get all of their allocated money out the door, while others have money left over.
Opa-locka, for example, has yet to spend $200,000 of its $2.1 million allocation, according to City Manager John Pate. He said there isn’t currently a plan to spend the rest, meaning it could be returned to the county.
“But we hear with the new stimulus package that we may be able to keep the money and spend it into 2021,” Pate said, referring to Congress’ proposed extension of the deadline.
USE IT OR LOSE IT?
Unspent CARES funds ultimately go back to the U.S. Treasury, but the county plans to use any leftover money to offset its own COVID-related costs.
The city of Miami has scrambled to allocate $8.5 million of CARES money for small business grants and $250 Publix gift cards. After long lines at multiple distribution events, the city commission shifted more money toward an expanded program to offer cash cards at varying amounts.
According to projections earlier this year, the pandemic’s economic fallout was expected to blow a nearly $30 million hole in Miami’s municipal budget. The forecast turned out to be off by more than $20 million, leading administrators to reverse cuts that had been approved in September.
The slimmed budget had included cuts to the police and fire departments — reductions that were restored after the unexpected revenue flowed in. It’s unclear if the recent federal guidance on police and fire salaries could have any additional impact on the city’s budget outlook.