The Pulaski County Council is looking to carry over spending permission for the county’s COVID-19 response into 2021, but not without some questions about that money’s oversight.
Emergency Management Agency Director Sheri Gaillard told council members Monday that they’ll need $700 a month for the COVID-19 testing site at the Star City Community Center. She said OptumServe is providing the personnel and supplies, and the county isn’t being charged rent, as long as it covers the cost of utilities and cleaning.
But Auditor Laura Wheeler expressed concern that the decision to spend the $700 a month on the testing site was made before funding plans were put in place, and Council Member Brian Young complained that regular updates hadn’t been given during incident management team meetings.
A total of $100,000 had been appropriated out of the Riverboat Fund last May to let the incident management team pay for any immediate needs. Only about $2,400 of that ended up being spent by the team itself, but several thousand dollars were used on COVID-related employee overtime. That still left almost half of that money unspent by the end of 2020, although no one at Monday’s council meeting seemed to have an exact dollar amount. Since permission to spend the money goes away at the end of the year, council members have to appropriate it again to let it be used now.
Since they didn’t have a specific amount, council members voted to advertise an additional appropriation for whatever amount remained unspent out of last year’s additional appropriation. Half of that money would be earmarked for supplies, while the other half would be for overtime wages that may come up. In any case, it was noted that 75 percent of those costs would likely be eligible for reimbursement from FEMA.
Council members also voted to proceed with the process of appropriating several thousand dollars in CARES Act money that hadn’t been spent yet. Those additional appropriations will likely be up for final approval next month.
