City Council OKs additional CARES Act funding

Funds used to finance an economic recovery strategy and economic and housing support for families

The Vacaville City Council unanimously approved a resolution to allocate state funding toward two areas to assist with COVID-19 recovery at its Tuesday meeting.

The council approved reallocating money from California’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES) fund

to finance an economic recovery strategy as well as economic and housing support through the Vacaville Police Department’s Family Resource Center (FRC).

Finance Director Ken Matsumiya said as part of the state’s 2020-21 fiscal year budget, $500 million has been allocated to cities for coronavirus relief based on their population. For Vacaville, the city has received slightly more than $1.2 million in CARES funding which is to be used “to cover expenses related to the health and safety impacts of COVID,” Matsumiya said.

Cities also have to submit expense reports. Thus far, the city’s current expenses have included $620,000 for personnel and supply costs related to the pandemic response, $50,000 for homeless non-congregate sheltering, $250,000 for the Small Business Grant Program and $12,600 for the Senior Hot Meals Program.

For the next round of funding, the city proposed two new areas of funding. The first — a coronavirus economic recovery strategy — was highlighted by Don Burrus, director of economic services.

“We know that Vacaville, along with many cities, their economies have been shattered since March,” Burrus said. “The hardesthit businesses and largest employee layoffs have occurred in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries, which the city of Vacaville has a higher portion of businesses and employees than any other sector in the city.”

To address the challenges businesses have faced, Burrus said the Economic Development Depar tment wants to work with Chabin Concepts, an economic development firm based out of Chico, to prepare a recovery strategy.

The strategy would help the city do an analysis of the industries hit the hardest, define the impacts on key groups, gather input from key resources, develop a strategy and monitor it for results.

Additionally, Burrus said staff and Chabin Concepts would work to create an engagement schedule to allow them to work with all key stakeholders to develop a strategy. Throughout the process, updates would be provided to the council.

For this item, staff requested $49,000.

Gloria Diaz, clinical services administrator with the Vacaville Police Department, presented the next item which was a request by the FRC to provide $ 50,000 directly to families.

“Our community was hit very deeply because of the high amount of retail and service delivery jobs we have in our community,” she said. “Those families that work in those industries are being adversely affected.”

The funding would assist 50 families or individuals and approximately 98 children from being dislocated from their homes by assisting with rent, utilities and food. Each family will have a maximum of $1,000 to either pay rent or a combination of rent, utilities and food.

To receive assistance, applicants must provide a current lease agreement for their apartment or home in Vacaville, a signed letter from the landlord indicating how much the family owes as well as a tax assessor statement showing proof of ownership, a copy of a utility bill indicating a late payment, and a letter from their current or previous employer stating a job loss or decrease in the number of hours worked due to the virus.

Councilman Nolan Sullivan expressed concern that approximately half of the money was being used for staff costs.

“I am a little nervous and also kind of curious as to how much of that funding actually needs to go to staff or could be funded out of the General Fund,” he said. “How much of that stuff should be going to the businesses in Vacaville that are failing, to residents that can’t pay their rent, things of that sort?”

Mat sumiya said the staff costs were a result of the funding period from March through June before the city had a Small Business Grant Program and other eligible uses. He said the state requires funding to be used for “necessary expenditures,” and if no expenditures were reported during that time period, the state may reallocate funds elsewhere.

“Since we did not have any expenditures from March through June in any of these other categories… we poured the $600k — or half of our allotment — in cost recovery to show the state that we have this plan in place to fully utilize the funds.”

Matsumiya said half of the allotment would go toward covering cost recovery, and the other half would go to direct assistance programs.

Sullivan said the city should prioritize business grants and rental payments, especially with the chance of a spike in COVID-19 cases in the winter.

“Whatever we’re doing now, we need to speed up,” he said. ‘ Whatever we do in the future, we need to speed up.”

Wendy Breckon, a District 1 City Council candidate, said she hoped the economic recovery plan took into account what other communities were doing with CARES Act money. She referred to Sacramento using its funding to launch a job-training program and give out free laptops to its participants, while also providing a $600 stipend to remain in the training.

“I thought that was a really creative use of CARES money,” she said.

Burrus said staff would definitely look at best practices from other cities throughout the country.

“What we’re embarking on right now is not something that’s just happening in Vacaville,” he said. “This is happening all over the nation right now, and my colleagues in economic development, we are in constant communication on what’s being done in their communities and even outside of the United States for us to be able to help our business community.”

The council voted 4- 0 to approve the funding. Councilwoman Dilenna Harris was absent.