Joplin officials say they have big plans for $13.8 million of pandemic relief funds the tornado-ravaged southwestern Missouri city received under a two-year-old federal law. Yet the latest federal records show none of the money has been spent \u2014 or even budgeted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, about 6,300 cities and counties \u2014 nearly 1 in 4 nationwide \u2014 reported no expenditures as of this spring, according to an Associated Press analysis of data released by the U.S. Treasury Department. About 5,100 of those listed no projects \u2014 either planned or underway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So what gives? Is the money not needed? Are cities just sitting on it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Local and federal officials told the AP in interviews that the publicly available data is misleading \u2014 pockmarked by differing interpretations over exactly what must be reported, lagging in timeliness and failing to account for some preliminary planning. Critics contend it\u2019s an indication of a flawed pandemic response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Federal officials estimate that governments have spending commitments for more than 80% of the funds, even if that\u2019s hard to tell from their reporting requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joplin, for example, plans to spend its pandemic aid on housing projects, high-speed internet, streets, a bicycle park, public safety equipment and more. The City Council approved the plan last month. But it won\u2019t show up on federal reports until October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The city, which was devastated in 2011 by one of deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history, took a deliberate approach with its pandemic aid to develop \u201creally transformational projects,\u201d said Leslie Haase, the city\u2019s finance director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past couple years, it leveraged the pandemic aid to win millions of additional dollars of state grants. With the combined funds, it plans to relaunch an expired post-tornado program that helps people make down-payments on homes. The city also plans to spend millions of dollars to repair or demolish old houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think by the time 2026 rolls around, Joplin will be a better community,\u201d Haase said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan\u00a0\u2014 passed in 2021 by a Democratic-led Congress and signed by President Joe Biden \u2014 contained $350 billion of flexible aid to states, territories, tribes, counties, cities and towns. The Biden administration says the money was intended to provide both immediate aid amid a health crisis and a longer-term boost for communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Governments must obligate that money for projects by the end of next year and spend it by the close of 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As of their April reports, more 26,500 governments collectively had spent 43% of their funds and approved plans for spending 77% of the money, according to the AP\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The actual amount of spending commitments likely is well over 80% when accounting for lag times and different reporting approaches taken by local governments, said Gene Sperling, the White House American Rescue Plan coordinator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat you see across the country is that counties, cities, states overwhelmingly have committed these funds, are using them, are on track to meet their legal deadlines to have all the funds obligated by the end of 2024,\u201d Sperling said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Republicans and fiscal conservatives have questioned whether the spending is necessary, noting that most\u00a0states rebounded quickly\u00a0from an initial tax plunge during the pandemic to post large budget surpluses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAlthough the Left claimed their $2 trillion bill was designed to fight COVID, they wasted hundreds of billions of Americans\u2019 hard-earned tax dollars on ridiculous things,\u201d Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement to the AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among other things, the money helped finance an upscale hotel in Florida, a minor league baseball stadium in New York and prisons in Alabama \u2014\u00a0drawing outrage from some members of Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some governments waited to do anything with the money until the Treasury Department finalized its rules in April 2022. Details are lacking on how some governments are using their funds because\u00a0the Treasury relaxed reporting requirements\u00a0for any money categorized by state or local officials as a replacement for lost revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the AP\u2019s analysis, more than 6,000 local governments categorized their entire federal allotment as \u201crevenue replacement\u201d \u2014 often taking advantage of a Treasury rule that allows up to $10 million of assumed revenue loss without having to prove it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though they can provide more details if they choose, governments categorizing all their federal aid as replacement revenue only have to report it as one project, the Treasury told the AP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But some didn\u2019t even do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Denver suburb of Lakewood, Colorado, claimed its entire $21.6 million allotment as a revenue replacement, since it had dipped into reserves to pay police during the pandemic. It reported no projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet the federal aid helped the city to construct sidewalks, replace computer software, upgrade the police radio system and make fire and safety improvements to a civic center, among other things, said Lakewood Chief Financial Officer Holly Bjorklund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those were \u201cessential things that really needed to be done and would cost more if we waited longer to address them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maryland\u2019s capital city of Annapolis also described no projects in its April report. But Annapolis already has used $1.2 million of its $7.6 million allotment as a revenue replacement for its depleted public transit funds, said city spokesperson Mitchelle Stephenson. It expects to tap more of the federal aid for city operations in the 2024 budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Treasury\u2019s guidance about how to report revenue replacement funds used for government services wasn\u2019t very clear, said Katie Buckley, federal funding assistance program director for the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. But Buckley said she advised local officials to report it all as one project for government services, and then list what that included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Counting the federal money as replacement funding for government services shouldn\u2019t relieve local officials of describing what they did with it \u2014 even if it just went toward salaries or office supplies, said Sean Moulton, senior policy analyst at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is taxpayer money, and a lot of it,\u201d said Moulton, adding: \u201cThere should be accountability that follows it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are no particular repercussions for reporting things incorrectly. There also are no immediate penalties for not reporting at all \u2014 though Treasury\u2019s guidance says \u201ca record of late reporting\u201d could lead to the \u201cdevelopment of a corrective action plan, or other consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ascension Parish, Louisiana, which received $24.6 million, reported no expenses or projects as of April \u2014 though the Parish Council had approved a project list last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A financial tracking document provided by the parish to the AP shows a purchase order was initiated last October for a $1 million improvement project at Youth Legacy Duplessis Park. The materials were delivered for the project in mid-March, before the Treasury\u2019s reporting deadline. But most of the parish\u2019s other projects weren\u2019t underway yet by the April report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve haven\u2019t spent a lot of the money, but we\u2019ve got a lot contracts, a lot of design work,\u201d said Patrick Goldsmith, the parish\u2019s chief financial officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the projects should be included when the next quarterly reports are released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While many governments have made \u201csteady progress\u201d using pandemic relief funds, some waited until closer to the July start of their fiscal years to approve spending plans, said Teryn Zmuda, chief economist and research officer at the National Association of Counties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to rush these funds,\u201d Zmuda said. \u201cWhile the intent of the dollars was to respond to the pandemic, it was also to very intentionally build your community based on its specific needs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Joplin officials say they have big plans for $13.8 mill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2733,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions\/2733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}