Santa Clara County has some big bucks to spend.
Through May 2022, the federal government will dole out $374.4 million to the county as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. It’s money that is supposed to be spent by cities, counties and states to recover from the pandemic as part of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package signed by President Joe Biden in March.
The county already decided to spend $76 million of the funds on “hero pay” checks for roughly 22,000 county workers, who will get a maximum of $2,500 depending on their work status. The decision to hand out the bonuses was criticized by some county workers who felt not all their colleagues deserved it and San Jose councilmember and mayoral candidate Matt Mahan, who viewed the money as a misuse of public funds. Union members and leaders then pushed back on Mahan, pointing out he had voted to approve $1,000 bonuses for city workers during the summer. Mahan later called that an “apples to oranges” comparison.
On Tuesday, the county supervisors will receive a recommendation from the county executive about to spend the remaining $300 million. The supervisors can either approve the proposed allocations or offer their own suggestions. Here is the county’s proposal:
$157 million for county COVID-19 expenses not covered by Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements. This includes vaccine outreach and education, testing, variant monitoring, housing, quarantine and isolation costs, increasing healthcare capacity costs, contact tracing and “future” impacts that the pandemic may have on the county.
$65.3 million for mental health, homelessness and other healthcare costs:
- $13.1 million for the “Heading Home” campaign, a plan to house every homeless family in the county by 2025
- $30.4 million for behavioral health services aimed at the homeless, families, migrant farm workers and those in the criminal justice system
- $21.8 million for upgrading the county’s health records system, a case manager who oversees homeless veterans over the course of 18 to 24 months, families in the child welfare system who are at-risk for homelessness, adults who are under probation or in pre-trial services to help avoid homelessness, youth substance abuse care, mental telehealth services, upgrading mental health electronic records, placement services for “seriously mentally ill” patients and an upgraded mental health management program
$74.7 million in grants, family-focused services, and upgrades to county infrastructure:
- $10 million for nonprofits in the county who experienced economic hardship because of the pandemic
- $20 million to support families impacted by the pandemic
- $10 million to help student mental health services
- $34.7 million for outreach and engagement at homeless encampments with a focus on families, wages for those who lost their job during the pandemic, increasing the approval rate for disabled individuals who receive monthly Supplemental Security Income payments, training and development of childcare workers, meal delivery to seniors, bonuses for county fire department workers (separate from the $76 million in “hero pay” checks), replacing and upgrading defibrillators for the county fire department, upgrading video conference services in county jails, a two-year pilot program that would speed up treatment placements for individuals serving time in jail or court and nonprofits and businesses who want air filtration devices to circulate air to prevent COVID-19 infections
At least one supervisor said they have a problem with how half the money is proposed to be spent.
District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said Monday she disagrees with spending $157 million for pandemic-related costs the county has shouldered because FEMA should pay that. In March 2020, President Donald Trump directed FEMA to reimburse local and state governments for 75 percent of COVID-19 costs, a figure that President Biden later increased to 100 percent.
“That should not be part of the funding,” Ellenberg said. “I’m not at all convinced that FEMA reimbursement will not be available. We eliminate the opportunity to apply (for reimbursements) if we allocate ARPA funds. I think it is critical we keep that door open.”
Ellenberg also said although tens of millions of dollars are already allocated to early childhood services in the proposal, she would like to see even more funding in that area. In addition, she said she wants to see $10 million go towards small business grants, something that did not make it into the proposal.
County Executive Jeffrey Smith and supervisors Joe Simitian, Mike Wasserman, Otto Lee and Cindy Chavez were unavailable for comment.
Source: www.mercurynews.com