Board to consider spending plan for coronavirus relief

The Hot Springs Board of Directors will consider a spending plan tonight for the $254,743 the city received in Community Development Block Grant funds for coronavirus response, prevention and preparation.

Action items on tonight’s agenda include a resolution incorporating the funding into the city’s 2019 CDBG annual action plan, which the board approved last June as a condition for receiving the city’s $450,010 allocation for the federal fiscal year that began in October 2018.

The board will consider the fiscal year 2020 annual action plan

in a separate resolution tonight. The 60-day deadline to ratify the plan allocating the city’s $433,067 for the fiscal year that ends in September expires this month.

The resolution amending the fiscal year 2019 plan to include the more than $250,000 in coronavirus aid from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would allocate $126,850 for personal protective equipment and testing supplies for clinics,

$76,824 to quarantine infected homeless people and

$50,824 to feed low-to-moderate income people. CDBG funding is typically limited to the city limits and low-to-moderate income residents of the city, but the city requested a waiver last month to include Garland County and all of its residents in the aid package. The city and county have been coordinating their pandemic responses, an interlocal partnership that has included buying protective equipment on the open market and supporting evaluation and testing centers inside and outside the city.

Testing supplies purchased with the funds could be used on all city and county residents, irrespective of income, if the waiver excusing documentation of individual eligibility is granted, the city said. The city typically has to list the annual income and residency of people who benefit from CDBG funding.

City Manager Bill Burrough told the board the city and county began buying protective equipment and supplying the local evaluation and testing centers in March. He said that support has helped Garland County be among the state leaders in per capita testing, with the number of test results approaching 3% of the county’s population.

Approval of the waivers would allow the coronavirus aid to reimburse the city and county for funds spent supporting the five centers operating in Garland County.

The $76,824 for quarantining or isolating infected homeless people could be put toward a partnership Burrough said the city has with a local motel to house homeless who test positive for COVID-19. He said the expected arrival this week of The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ mobile testing center will help the city identify those people.

The $50,824 for feeding low-to-moderate income people would support feeding programs such as those at the Jackson House or Salvation Army, he said, noting that food banks the nonprofits rely on have been overwhelmed by increased demand during the pandemic.

“If we don’t use it for all of those needs, we’ll regroup and see if we need to send in another amendment to be able to use those for other activities,” he told the board.

The city’s planning and development department said the coronavirus aid doesn’t have to follow the CDBG program’s normal allocation process.

Other resolutions before the board tonight would amend the city’s CDBG citizen participation plan through the end of September, allowing virtual hearings of the community development advisory committee and reducing the 30-day public comment period to five days when amendments to the annual action plan and five-year consolidated plan are being considered.