Clock ticks on unspent $1.3B

Northampton and Lehigh could get part of funds after Dec. 1

HARRISBURG— Pennsylvania has $1.3 billion in unspent federal coronavirus emergency funds that could help people, businesses and counties across the state, and the clock is ticking on an important deadline that would change where the money goes.

If Harrisburg lawmakers don’t legislate how to spend the money before Dec. 1, it automatically goes to 60 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties.

Northampton and Lehigh are among those 60 counties. That fact plus her belief the two counties did well handling coronavirus money earlier this year makes state Sen. Lisa Boscola think the Lehigh Valley might do better if the Dec. 1 deadline comes and goes without action.

“I probably would advocate more to doing it that way,” the Northampton County Democrat said.

The $1.3 billion is the last

portion of coronavirus aid Pennsylvania got from the federal government early in the pandemic. It is being held in a “COVID-19 Response Restricted Account” with Legislature-approved rules that, when the Dec. 1 deadline passes, prevent it from going to Philadelphia, Allegheny, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery or Bucks counties.

Those seven counties received money directly from the federal government.

Boscola’s position puts her against many in Harrisburg who want to see the money spent before Dec. 1. They include senators from her own party.

“It is a crime, quite frankly, to have $1.3 billion sitting around programmed to help people, but not getting to the people,” Democratic Sen. Vincent Hughes said recently.

Hughes hinted that party loyalty might decrease the likelihood Republicans who control the Legislature would take action before Dec. 1.

Concerning the 60 counties, Hughes said, “The overwhelming majority of those counties are Republican counties.”

Jennifer Kocher, a spokeswoman for Senate Republican Majority Leader Jake Corman, said the plan is to have the Legislature appropriate the money.

Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania, pointed to another deadline: Any coronavirus money not spent by Dec. 31 regardless of what Pennsylvania lawmakers do must be returned to the federal government.

That means that if nothing happens by Dec. 1, the 60 counties that get the money will have to act quickly.

“That gives us 30 days,” Schaefer said.

She said that was not much time to appropriately get money distributed to those who need it.

“So this uncertainty makes it very difficult to know if the counties are getting any additional funding and if so, how they can best drive that out the door in such a short period of time,” she said.