Boston to get $121M in coronavirus aid, eyeing expanded COVID testing, tracing

An infusion of as much as $121 million is on the way from Washington to Boston, where local officials plan to put much of the large sum toward public health measures to combat the coronavirus, like large-scale testing and contact tracing.

“We hope that it provides us an opportunity to have a response that’s not a typical local-government response,” Boston Chief Financial Officer Emme Handy told the Herald.

The coronavirus cash — specifically $120,853,359.10 — comes from the CARES Act, the massive $2.2 trillion recovery and stimulus package hammered together in Washington a month ago that includes local aid, more money for unemployment and loans for businesses. The full sum of Boston’s aid is fully available to the city, but Mayor Martin Walsh’s administration has to follow the very specific guidelines over the money’s usage — and if the feds decide that Boston has used some of the money for something it’s not meant for, then Boston will have to pay that portion back out of its own pocket.

For example, this money can’t just be used to replace the diminishing tax revenues to balance the budget. It’s also unclear whether it could be used for the secondary effects of this disaster, such as rent relief or small-business grants, like the city already has given out.

The federal aid can be used retroactively to offset costs from March 1 until now, and the pot of money is available through the end of the year. Handy and city budget director Justin Sterritt estimate that the city has spent $10 million to $20 million in these unexpected COVID-19 costs so far, on items such as personal protective equipment, cleaning public buildings and Chromebooks for Boston Public Schools students who now have to learn remotely.

Handy said that the first priority will be covering public-safety costs, like making sure police, fire and EMS have enough PPE.

But the city is looking to expand testing and tracing measures, such as building on a recently announced random antibody test to try to get a sense of how many Bostonians have the disease. Wide-scale tests like that, as well as contact tracing and quarantining of infected people, are some of the steps officials say the city and the country will need to look at as we move past the peak of cases and look to begin to reopen the hard-hit economy.

“There is an opportunity for targeted investments,” Sterritt said. “We’re only doing a fraction of the testing that we think we’re going to need to open back up the economy … The priority would be the public health measures. This would be to do it on a more massive scale.”

The city has introduced a budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2021, which starts in July, that still would have an increase year over year — but a smaller one than normal due to the expected decrease in revenue that comes from the virus’ ongoing pummeling of the economy. The budget is currently before council, where the order to take in and eventually spend the new $121 million will be introduced on Wednesday.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2zzVOm0