County eyes $161M in pandemic relief aid

NORRISTOWN >> The passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 offers additional relief for Montgomery County with opportunities to stretch the stimulus dollars over time.

“It gives us certainty for planning,” said Montgomery County Commissioners’ Vice Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr.

Included in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package is $350 billion carved out for “states, counties, cities and tribal governments” to assist with financial burdens

associated with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The full stake for counties is $65.1 billion, with Montgomery County’s share amounting to approximately $161 million, according to Montgomery County’s Chief Financial Officer Dean Dortone.

“I think that’s part of what we’ll understand more in the future as the Treasury releases guidance, but based on some of the preliminary reading of the information, it appears that the funding’s going to be able to be utilized for similar programs that we used the CARES Act for — driving the economy by supporting the local businesses with grants, supporting the not-for-profits, supporting our own operations,” he said.

The legislation was passed and signed into law on March 11, and Lawrence praised politicians representing the county for their vote.

“This new bill is great, too, because we are still in a pandemic,” Lawrence said. The additional cash infusion will assist overall operations in continuing testing and getting the area’s roughly 830,000 citizens inoculated.

Half of the funding will be deposited within two months, with the remaining monies available the following year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, with the proceeds active until Dec. 31, 2024.

“That’s a positive, that’s an asset to us, to be able to plan and strategically utilize the funds over a longer period of time, versus the CARES Act where the original date was Dec. 30,” Dortone said.

There was some confusion surrounding the deadline to use the $145 million in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act dollars, as any unused funds would have to be returned to the federal government, according to Dortone.

“That was the pressure of spending it by the end of the year,” Dortone said. “Can you do it? Can you do it in the right manner? Otherwise you’re gonna have to turn it back, and that was a problem across the country.”

The deadline was eventually extended until Dec. 30, which Dortone said was a “relief” as county officials could take their time with ongoing projects.

As cases of COVID-19 began climbing last year, county officials were in unknown territory.

“Our budget didn’t have funding to deal with an emergency of that magnitude,” Dortone said. “We had some funding through our public health department for routine things and public safety, but not for something of this scale. Every day there was a new need coming up, a new expense had to be paid for immediately, implemented immediately.”

The COVID-19 pandemic essentially halted life as we knew it. Gov. Wolf imposed a number of mitigation restrictions including a stayat-home order and the closure of nonessential businesses and schools.

“So as the situation was evolving, there was more and more need: economic need for the business, there was community need, for public safety, and all those things,” Dortone said. “So we didn’t really know.”

Dortone recalled personal protective equipment being a top priority in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was later reimbursed with the CARES Act funding.

“We knew we couldn’t waste any time,” he said. “We knew we had to buy PPE and everything else and we didn’t even know how it might qualify for the CARES Act.”

Meanwhile in the nation’s capitol, legislators passed the $2.2 trillion stimulus package that took effect on March 27, 2020. However, there was a bit of a learning curve when getting up to speed on the types of initiatives the funding could apply to.

“One of the biggest challenges too, not just for us, everybody across the country, the federal government was a little bit vague on the guidelines and the uses of this because they knew the funds had to get out quickly,” Dortone said.

Lawrence said the “CARES Act funding was instrumental” in providing much needed services to the more than 800,000 people who call Montgomery County home.

In a report released last month breaking down the spending of the county’s CARES Act allocation, a majority of the funds focused on enterprises related to county operations, emergency response and public health, as well as economic and community assistance.

Some big ticket items included $16 million for the MontcoStrong Small Business Grant Program, $15 million allocated for the county’s 23 public schools, $5 million for the MontcoStrong Nonprofit Resiliency and Restoration Grant Program, and another $4.5 million in rent and utility relief assistance for county residents in need.

“To all of our residents still struggling, please know we are doing everything we can to provide additional relief to you and your families this year,” Lawrence said during a board meeting earlier this month.

“Once this funding was in hand, we acted swiftly and decisively to implement programs and initiatives to provide immediate relief to businesses, nonprofits, child care centers, and individuals across the county impacted by COVID-19,” county Commissioners’ Chairwoman Valerie Arkoosh added.

Other spending initiatives consisted of purchasing personal protective equipment and the pandemic’s associated costs relating to contact tracing, testing and preparations for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, according to the online report.

For a full list of projects included in the county’s CARES Act funding report, visit stories.opengov. com/montcopa/published/ RHWLWQ0ro.