The Haines Borough Assembly voted to roll back a December spending plan for leftover CARES Act funds after the federal government approved an extension of the spending deadline for the coronavirus relief money.
At the assembly’s final meeting before the end of the year, the original deadline for spending CARES Act funds, members voted to use somewhere between $250,000 and $280,000 CARES Act funds from the original $4 million the borough received to pay emergency worker wages.
At the December meeting, members explained that using the leftover funds for emergency worker wages would free up borough funds for COVID-19 use in the new year, after the CARES Act spending deadline.
On Tuesday, assembly members voted to reconsider the spending plan for the sake of simplicity.
“The reason we are looking at this is we no longer have to do those gymnastics,” Mayor Douglas Olerud said. Instead of using the CARES Act funds to pay emergency workers and transferring an equivalent amount into a COVID-19 spending fund, the borough will put the remaining CARES Act funds in the COVID-19 fund.
Under the new spending deadline approved by the federal government, the assembly has until the end of 2021 to expend CARES Act funds.
Interim borough manager Alekka Fullerton suggested that a portion of the remaining funds be used to cover COVID-19 testing for travelers entering the borough. Last year, the assembly earmarked $50,000 CARES Act funds to provide vouchers to travelers entering Haines. Fullerton said the borough has almost run out of these funds.
At present, the borough-funded tests for travelers are the only form of free, asymptomatic testing offered in Haines. Non-traveler asymptomatic tests are available by appointment with a $145 charge. Symptomatic COVID-19 testing and testing for close contacts of COVID-19 patients are available by referral only with no associated out-of-pocket charges, according to Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium spokesperson Maegan Bosak.
The extension of the CARES Act spending deadline also gives state and local officials additional time to work on a spending plan for $1.4 million the state set aside to assist with stabilization and behavioral health services in the wake of the Dec. 2 landslide. The grant, which comes from state CARES Act funds, was initially awarded to Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau to directly benefit Haines.
Complications have arisen with the funding, delaying the timeline for expending the funds, according to Fullerton.
“I understand that once they realized that Bartlett is wholly owned by CBJ, the City and Borough of Juneau, it created some problems with respect to our receiving those funds,” Fullerton said. She said the funds were returned to the state with the understanding that they would be reappropriated directly to the Haines Borough. So far, that has not happened.
Fullerton said she’s a little concerned that the extended CARES Act spending deadline could impact the state’s decision to return the funds to Haines, but said she’s received assurances from state officials that the funding will come through.
The assembly’s CARES Act ad hoc committee will meet next on Jan. 21 to discuss plans for spending remaining borough CARES Act funds.