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CARES Act spending team hears the up-to-date coronavirus needs of Missouri agencies, businesses

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The informal advisory group appointed by Gov. Mike Parson heard a wish list from a series of state agency and organization leaders about how to spend CARES Act funding coming into the state.

State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick says Missouri has about $1.5 billion to work with after buying personal protective equipment for state health and frontline workers. As CARES Act money — and mandatory guidelines — come from the federal government, the team will recommend spending priorities to the governor.

Fitzpatrick says the panel is “still in information-gathering mode.’

The team met for more than four hours at the Capitol and remotely on Thursday. In the first hour, Missouri DHSS Director Randall Williams briefed the panel on the state’s approach to testing and how it could be paid for. Williams explained a three-pronged approach to add to current PCR (nasal swab sampling) infection tests given to individuals who ask for it.

  • “Boxed-in” approach:
    Williams says there will be outbreaks and each county needs to be ready to address those flare-ups by testing everyone involved.”We go in and test all the staff, all the residents because we know when this gets into congregated facilities, whether it be prisons or cruise ships or nursing homes or cruise ships, this tends to be very infectious,” Williams said. He said Medicare and Medicaid will pay for this testing and he wants health care facilities to seek this insurance rather than the state pay for it. State Budget Director Dan Haug says the state will reimburse large facilities and agencies through $135 million from coronavirus relief funds recently allocated for testing.
  • Community sampling:
    Williams says communities are asking DHSS to come in to do “snapshot” or random sampling to extrapolate from a small number what a larger number of cases might be. The department sampled 12 counties three weeks ago and found nine COVID-19 cases out of 3,000 tested. They are now testing in Buchanan and Andrew County. St. Louis County will be testing 5,000 people to be paid for locally. Other locations to be tested.
  • Sentinel testing:
    The health department picks areas of high morbidity and mortality or long-term care facilities to do periodic testing. Williams says there is a plan to put these in place around the state, in order to predict outbreaks before large-scale hospitalizations.

Versailles Republican, Rep. David Wood took issue with local health departments having to foot the bill for testing services, relying on local general CARES funding to the county to be allocated to them.

“Basically you have no plans of sending money down, even though they are doing your work and they are funded through you, you’re having them compete for the dollars that are sent to the county? I’ve made that point in budget committee numbers of times that if Health and Senior Services is receiving additional funds from COVID money, whatever pot it’s coming from and they are not passing on to the people doing the work, that to me is … (mumbled expletive).”

Unemployment, tourism, job training needs 

Chris Slinkard, Director at Missouri Division of Employment Security discussed the health of the state Unemployment Trust Fund.

“The trust fund at the beginning of this year was at almost $1.1 billion, the largest in state history,” he told the panel. “On May 18, 2020, the UI Trust Fund balance was $858 million; the majority what was given out has come from the U.S. CARES Act.”

Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and CEO Dan Mehan

Missouri Chamber of Commerce President Dan Mehan also spoke to the group, seeking more attention for the state’s apprenticeship and internship program for workers who may not get their jobs back.

“If you look at where we would prioritize, it’s about the testing and it’s about the people. It’s about the apprenticeship and internship approach that when people talk infrastructure, the term shovel-ready got kind of a bad connotation, we have shovels in the ground in these apprenticeship programs and they are working,” Mehan said.

Mehan also said that businesses opening up need some help by a temporary law.

“We sent a letter to the governor two days ago asking for a special session to consider lawsuit protection. There are a lot of employers out there that are fearful or reopening their doors for fears being sued for whatever possible reason even though they try to open responsibly, safely, with PPE and try to follow CDC guidelines, guidelines of the state and we’d just like to have some sort of temporary — not global — but temporary immunity from lawsuits that could occur from this. We’ve seen hundreds crop up around the country. The fear of lawsuits is going to hinder our recovery in a big way,” Mehan said.

Stephen Foutes, Director for the Missouri Division of Tourism reported losses compared to the normal brought in by sightseers and visitors.

“Approximately $2.16 billion in tourism-related spending has been lost from February 29 through May 9 of this year as compared to roughly the same time last year, ” Foutes said.

“Since early March both the tourism economy and the industry employment have plummeted,” he added.

One-third of the tourism industry in Missouri has filed for unemployment.

Zora Mulligan released information from a public and private college and university survey on how higher education institutions are trying to cope with budget cuts and the demands of creating online learning.

“If I have one big takeaway from this survey is that institutions worked really hard, as did students, to figure out ways to make this work this spring semester. But if this is to be a longer-term strategy, we’ve got a lot of additional investment that we’re going to need to make in terms of professional development, advising, infrastructure, student capacity, and then the larger broadband system in which this operates,” Mulligan summarized.

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Jeff Falter agreed with Mulligan that broadband capacity across the state is a major problem.

“Districts report an estimated 23 percent of students are without internet access — or one out of every five students,” he told the panel.

Southern Missouri congressman emphasizes importance of rural hospitals and telehealth (AUDIO)

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A congressman who represents 30 counties across southern Missouri thanks the Trump Administration for reversing decisions involving rural hospitals and telehealth.

U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, speaks to a community member at Mercy Hospital Jefferson in Festus in 2016 (file photo courtesy of Congressman Smith’s office)

U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, describes the two reversals as major wins for rural Missouri and rural America.

The first decision involves rural hospitals and the CARES Act’s paycheck protection program (PPP). Smith says rural hospitals were not originally eligible for the program.

Now they are.

“When you’re looking at rural community hospitals such as those in Potosi, Ironton, Houston, Salem, Ste. Gen (Ste. Genevieve), they will be impacted now that they can participate in this program,” Smith says.

The Small Business Administration’s PPP is a forgivable loan that’s aimed at keeping employees on the payroll, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith says health care professionals and business leaders in his district say that’s critical.

Congressman Smith’s district has seen five hospital closings since 2016. Impacted towns have included Poplar Bluff, Farmington and Doniphan.

Smith is also praising federal health officials, for expanding telehealth to allow care to be administered over the phone. He says the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has reversed its earlier rule requiring telehealth to have audio and video.

“In southeast Missouri, a lot of folks don’t have internet, don’t have broadband … and they’re being told to stay at home and not come to hospitals but they still need to talk to their doctors,” says Smith.

Smith learned about the issue during COVID-19 conference calls with health care providers and business leaders in his district, and says he passed the concerns along to the Trump Administration.

He says the administration is willing to listen, adding that it “is making a big difference for southern Missourians.”

Smith’s massive district covers 20,000 square miles, from Jefferson County all the way to the Bootheel. It also includes part of the I-44 corridor, and extends into southwest Missouri.

The district includes Cape Girardeau, Sikeston, Kennett, West Plains and Ava.

Smith, who serves as the GOP Conference Secretary on Capitol Hill, tells Missourinet that his constituents want to re-open the country.

While he emphasizes that safety is the top priority, he says his constituents want the district to be the leader for the nation, in re-opening the country for business.

“We’re in such a rural area, over 20,000 square miles that covers the 8th congressional district in Missouri, we know how to social distance ourselves,” Smith says.

Congressman Smith voted for the bipartisan COVID-19 legislation in Washington in late April. It contains $75 billion for personal protective equipment for health care employees, and another $25 billion to expand testing.

Smith also praises President Donald Trump for quickly approving Governor Mike Parson’s request for a major disaster declaration. Smith says the administration has assisted more than 46,000 small businesses in Missouri during the pandemic, “to the tune of $7.5 billion.”

Click here to listen to the full seven-minute interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, which was recorded on May 5, 2020:

Copyright © 2020 · Missourinet

Missouri Auditor launches tracking site for COVID-19 spending

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Auditor Nicole Galloway’s office launched its transparency portal to track COVID-19 response spending by the State of Missouri.

According to the site, the state has received $2.3 billion to date and disbursed $716 million.

The auditor’s COVID-19 Response page tracks not only how much is received and expended in relief funds, but also lists which state and local government departments, vendors and expense categories are receiving the most funding.

The Auditor’s Office is compiling the information for the COVID-19 response page from data taken from the Statewide Advantage for Missouri (SAM II) system, which handles billions of dollars in financial transactions each year for the state.

State CARES Act team OK’s direct relief money to counties next week

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A bipartisan team of lawmakers, agency chiefs, and other advisors is helping Gov. Mike Parson to stay on top of massive amounts of federal money coming into Missouri for coping with COVID-19.

The working group appointed by the governor made its first major move Tuesday to clear $500 million in CARES Act funding to be spread out among counties and St. Louis City. View the allocations by county.

State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick chairs the group and says he has been preparing the counties to get this money.

“This is a lot of money. We’re going to get $521 million that for some counties represents a substantial portion of their operating budget for an entire year. The expectation I have tried to set in the conversations I have had, that they administer grants to other local government entities, whether it be their health departments, ambulance district or hospital district that has costs that have not been reimbursed from another source,” Fitzpatrick explained.

The checks could get to the counties about a week from today if the governor approves the spending.

Tuesday’s first meeting of the group also dealt with applying federal guidelines and a very general overview of state spending on coronavirus response — from public safety to testing. The CARES federal funding must be applied to direct costs from dealing with COVID-19 after March 1, 2020 and prior to December 30, 2020.

Though the $6.2 billion state supplemental budget serves as a guide for those allocations, members agree the challenge is discerning which agencies and businesses need the help and are not “double-dipping” with other aid coming directly from non-CARES Act aid.

“Things are changing pretty quickly,” said State Budget Director Dan Haug. He says he learned today that DESE is getting a separate $117 million for meals to schools.

“Things are still rolling in as we speak. We want to take a global look at this so that if they are getting $117 for meals then maybe we don’t need to provide money for meals and we can use that money more effectively somewhere else,” Haug said.

Haug says his division will provide the group with an accounting of all of the money coming into Missouri outside of the state budget, for instance, the recent relief to hospitals that came directly from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

 

Blunt: Missouri hospitals will get more of CARES Act funds this week

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Missouri’s Senator Roy Blunt says Missouri hospitals will get their part of another $50 billion set aside from CARES Act funding this week.  This week’s funding is based on past billing experience.

“We’re trying to make this easy, not hard, and do what we can to get hospitals in the place where they are stabilized again. Some money will then go to the surge hospital areas, about $10 billion dollars, and another $10 billion will go to rural hospitals. We are particularly concerned about those rural hospitals in Missouri,” Blunt told Missourinet today.

Blunt says the remaining $20 to be distributed nationally should “true up the real picture” of what hospital incomes were in 2018 and see what can be replaced because of demands of the coronavirus response.

“Because they were asked to stand ready to deal with a pandemic didn’t have the income that they would have had, though we were still asking those hospitals to keep their staff to be ready to deal with the next thing,” Blunt said.”

The first $30 billion was delivered last week and was based on 2019 Medicare billing. Missouri health care providers and hospitals got $618 million of that.

Blunt is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education.

Auditor Galloway’s big job: tracking billions coming in quickly, needing to be spent quickly

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State Auditor Nicole Galloway has the job of overseeing the billions of federal dollars coming into the state to be spent quickly on various programs to ease the COVID-19 health and economic crisis.

“The [Parson] administration is going to have a lot of discretion and decision-making authority over this money and so citizens deserve to know how this money is coming in, where it is going and how it is benefitting them and their communities.”

The Auditor’s office is creating an online tool for Missourians to track CARES Act money. She says it’s similar to the way Auditor Tom Schweich monitored the incoming 2009 federal stimulus money in the Great Recession.

Galloway is just as concerned about the state’s reserve funds. “We will recover from this and as we recover we need to truly manage our state’s finances in a conservative way,” she says.

State Auditor Nicole Galloway

In October of last year, Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway warned that the state’s “rainy day fund” is not ready for a recession or disaster. 

A complete copy of the report is online here.

Today, in the midst of a coronavirus-caused economic downturn, her predictions are playing out.

“I have been consistently advocating for the state to be in a better financial position and that includes the state reserves,” she tells Missourinet.  She says that after a deep dive in the state’s finances, their work “revealed the difficult realities of Missouri’s budget due to years of policy decisions based on unrealistic expectations by lawmakers.”

“We knew that because we are not prepared, the state is going to have to significantly cut expenditures and services, investment in things like education and infrastructure — and that’s exactly what we’re seeing,” she says.

The fund is most often used to sustain the state’s daily operations cash flow, for example paying off tax refunds. The Parson administration borrowed $500 million in 2019, according to audits.  In 2018, Moody’s Analytics ranked the state near the bottom in its economic preparedness stress test.

It would take a governor’s recommendation and then two-thirds of both the House and Senate to access the reserve funds. According to the Missouri Office of Administration, the funds would be paid back over three years starting the next fiscal year.

DHSS: Missouri now has 110 COVID-19 deaths

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State health officials say there are now 4,160 confirmed coronavirus cases in Missouri, along with 110 deaths.

The state Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) announced the latest numbers on Easter Sunday afternoon. The numbers have increased from Friday’s total of 3,799 cases and 96 deaths.

Missouri Governor Mike Parson signs the $6.2 billion supplemental budget to fight COVID-19 on April 10, 2020 in Jefferson City (photo courtesy of Governor Parson’s Flickr page)

Governor Mike Parson (R) signed the historic $6.2 billion supplemental budget on Friday, the largest supplemental budget in Missouri history. It’s aimed at battling the COVID-19 pandemic, which has cost thousands of jobs across the state.

The governor said Friday that the supplemental provides access to federal funding under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was signed by President Donald Trump in late March.

The CARES Act includes $150 billion in relief to states to help them mitigate coronavirus-related costs in the calendar year 2020.

Some of the funding will also be used to assist local governments with expenses incurred from COVID-19. State Rep. Kip Kendrick, D-Columbia, has been urging the Parson administration to send additional money to local health departments, saying they are critical to containing the coronavirus.

Kendrick is the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee.

Governor Parson has created an informal working group to make recommendations on best use of those federal dollars. State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick (R) is the leader of the working group.

The governor will deliver his next media briefing Monday afternoon at 3 in Jefferson City.

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