The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
$11M confusion over tab for stadium jabs
Falcons’ parent company says it hasn’t billed county for any costs.
Fulton County leaders said last week that the county could be eligible for up to $55 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency as reimbursement for COVID-19 expenses, and seemed not to know they would have to spend $11 million of that money for vaccinations at Mercedes-benz Stadium.
But stadium officials said Friday that they aren’t asking for any cash for use of the Falcons’ stadium.
County manager Dick Anderson told county commissioners that stadium officials offered the building — but not to cover associated costs. He said he has a list of $11 million in costs to jab thousands of people a day.
“I was a little shocked when I saw … I just assumed that was their contribution,” Fulton Commissioner Chairman Robb Pitts said during a public meeting Wednesday.
“I think,” said Anderson, “per
haps all of us when we were setting this up didn’t fully understand what they were committed (to and) what the costs were.” He said the deal “evolved over time” as the site increased in scale, meaning the county needed more staffing and logistics help.
But a spokeswoman for AMB Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the Falcons,
said Friday they haven’t sent any invoice. She said county staff
asked them to make a list of costs to run the site — things like how much to turn on the lights, put out tables and provide security.
There was sure to be miscommunication, considering how fast officials had to move to curb the spread of COVID-19. Planning for Mercedes-benz Stadium to host the mega-site came together in mere weeks.
County officials said Wednesday they would cover the cost with some of the $55 million in reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Of course, that was before the Falcons group said it was all a misunderstanding.
“We are working with all involved agencies to identify all reimbursable costs, and we do not yet know the full scope of those costs,” Fulton spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt wrote in a statement Friday.
Fulton’s chief financial officer Sharon Whitmore said county staff members are working with stadium officials to continue using the centralized, transit-accessible building once the eightweek vaccination mega-site period ends in May. Even after, Whitmore said, the county can still get reimbursed by FEMA for using the stadium.
Pitts said he hoped the money could be reimbursed, to which Whitmore replied that FEMA has agreed to front Fulton $5 million of the supposed $11 million tab.
With all the new FEMA money in addition to Fulton’s $207 million from the American Rescue Plan and other funds, the grand total in federal aid received by the county is about $300 million.
It took Whitmore three hours Wednesday to explain the $300 million game plan to the inquisitive commissioners.
“This might be a record,” she said at the end of the presentation, prompting chuckles.
The money is split into four categories: $72 million for health response (including roughly $40 million for vaccination/testing), $130 million for operational stability (with $35 million to pandemic-proof county facilities and $60 million for the massive court backlog), $70 million for community needs (think rental/mortgage assistance and food insecurity) and then $68 million in a contingency account (partly in case the FEMA reimbursements don’t work out).
Whitmore said the FEMA money was part of the package approved by Congress in early March. According to the National Association of Counties, the package directed $50 billion from FEMA’S Disaster Relief Fund to state, local, tribal and territorial governments for reimbursement of emergency services through September.
“I’ve been suspicious of this all along,” Anderson said of the FEMA money. “I don’t know how the government is going to give us $206 million and then reimburse us for vaccinations, but it appears that this is the way it works.”
Pitts responded with a favorite expression: “A lot of this is loosey-goosey.”
Since the pandemic began, venues built using taxpayer dollars have opened their doors for voting and for testing/vaccinations.
AMB CEO Steve Cannon in February declined to say how much the testing/vaccination endeavor is costing them. That was before the mega-site was announced, in an AJC story about public-private partnerships.
“We’re just essentially lending in-kind services,” he said at the time.
The stadium’s owners will receive, based on current projections, between $700 million and $900 million of Atlanta’s hotel-motel sales tax funds over 30 years.
“Suddenly people are realizing that these folks aren’t just takers, they’re givers, too,” Cannon said in February.