The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Lamont will free up $75M in federal virus relief for Conn. cities and towns
Gov. Ned Lamont on Thursday announced $75 million in pandemic-related relief for cities and towns that will be matched with federal emergency funds.
Forty-million dollars will be available for the fiscal year that ends June 30, and another $35 million will be available before the end of the calendar year.
With currently available federal funding, towns and cities should be eligible for about $200 million to cover coronavirus expenses, from the costs of cleaning public buildings, operating shelters, purchasing IT equipment, school distance learning and food, as well as hazardous duty pay and overtime.
“Now’s the time for us to start thinking about how we get back to work,” Lamont said during his daily late-afternoon news briefing in the State Capitol. “It doesn’t help us with the fact the income tax and sales tax took a big hit over the last three months.”
Melissa McCaw, who as secretary of the Office of Policy and Management is Lamont’s budget director, said that $600 million from the state’s robust $2.5 billion budget reserve will be used to balance the deficit in the fiscal year that ends June 30. She warned the next year has a projected $2.4 billion deficit, which will be balanced with more funding from the reserve, plus spending cuts.
“Between the FEMA along with the Coronavirus Relief Fund and any other federal funding dollars, we believe that municipalities will be fully funded for their expenses through June 30 and then we will begin to evaluate for expenses beyond that time period,” McCaw said. “They do not cover any lost government revenue; cannot be used for funds that you previously budgeted. The bottom line is it has to be for expenses during the public health emergency between March 1 and December 30.”
There was $111 million in FEMA funding already released to local school boards for remote learning expenses, plus grants for local health departments, she said, stressing that other groups, including nonprofit social services and smaller hospitals, want additional relief.
“They are a number of other stakeholders that are indicating that they are feeling challenged financially because of the COVID-related impacts,” she said. “Quite frankly, their requests for COVID support well exceed $1.4 billion, so there are other areas where we are considering support, and at the same time we need to leave ourselves with some flexibility in the event that some of the areas that are critical to our strategy to mitigating growth and resurgences in the event that we need to invest more resources.”
Lamont said a “wildcard” in the whole funding issue is the federal government.
“We don’t have any idea what they’re going to do on another supplemental,” Lamont said, stressing that no decision has been made on whether FEMA will pay for three quarters of future testing costs.“The federal government can just borrow their way to prosperity, but we’ve got to keep ourselves on a leash where we can balance this budget and make sure we get the testing done.”
In reaction, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities praised the governor’s new Municipal Coronavirus Relief Fund, which local officials will access through an electronic process through a state government portal. Awards will be awarded on the difference between local costs and reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But the advocates for towns and cities said that $630 million should be given to local governments from the state’s $1.4 billion in federal disaster relief.
The CCM stressed that the $75 million budget by Lamont was based on a survey in which towns and cities spent $40 million in unexpected pandemic expenses.