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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (June 30, 2021)
K1 SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30, 2021 | 3A Counties used COVID-19 funds for pandemic ripple effects Claire Withycombe and Megan Banta Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Oregon’s 36 counties sought millions of dollars in federal aid to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. From responding to emergencies to running courts to investigating disease outbreaks, critical county services were adapted and expanded to deal with the demands the pandemic created. Counties, as the local public health authorities, coordinated virus testing and traced the spread of COVID-19 through contact tracing. They also worked closely with local hospitals, said Gina Nikkel, executive director of the Association of Oregon Counties. When it came to public health, the state coordinated the response, but the counties “are the delivery system on the ground locally,” Nikkel said. Southern Oregon’s Douglas County, for instance, created a drive-thru test- ing clinic that reduced the need for pro- tective gear, Nikkel said. And when CO- VID-19 vaccines started becoming avail- able, counties put in the elbow grease to get mass vaccination sites, like the one at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, up and running. “We are directed and told by the state what needs to be done,” Nikkel said. “And then we do it.” Oregon received $1.6 billion in tax- payer funds from the federal CARES Act COVID-19 emergency funding program. The Oregon Department of Adminis- trative Services has paid about $189 mil- lion in coronavirus relief funds through the CARES Act to Oregon's counties through April, according to state data. That figure doesn't include relief money that counties received through legisla- tive allocations to other state agencies, such as the Oregon Health Authority. The state also spent relief money on their behalf on items like protective gear. Marion, Polk and Lane counties were permitted a maximum combined reim- bursement of $34 million in CARES Act funds. Counties also got money to respond to the pandemic from sources other than the relief funds, like the Federal Emergency Management Agency, better known by its acronym, FEMA. Data the counties provided the Reg- ister-Guard and Statesman Journal in response to records requests shows counties spent widely on services for people without housing, for county resi- dents adapting to work from home, on PPE Continued from Page 1A The state is not typically involved in the purchasing of personal protective equipment. Emergency response and health care providers have their own supply chains. However, once an emergency was declared, Dennis and Kelly Mix, deputy state chief procurement officer, took on the task. Normally requests are approved up a chain of command at a "measured" pace, Dennis said. In the first days of the pandemic, Dennis said she would spend the evenings approving requests moved forward by staff earlier in the day, but when the state got in touch with the vendor the following morning, the prod- uct would already be sold. And so DAS Director Katy Coba gave Dennis and Mix new power: up to $1 mil- lion in spending authority to capitalize on available product as it was discov- ered. "Kelly and I aren't trained to be wheeling and dealing on the phone at 7 p.m. and approving a million dollars to someone we've never met before," Den- nis said. "That alone caused a level of stress because there was this new re- sponsibility and what if we made a mis- take? It was so much money and there was a lot at stake." They also needed to break a career- long rule to never prepay for a ship- ment. Mix and Dennis have worked in procurement for decades and said this never happened before. "But the world worked where if you didn't make a deposit, you didn't get your order in," Mix said. Beyond that, they had a responsibil- ity to make sure the products were safe. Once they received a shipment of foodservice gloves when they expected medical-grade gloves. Another time they received medical isolation gowns that were not rated for coronavirus treatment. On top of that, guidance from the Food and Drug Administration and CDC changed frequently. "We don't generally procure PPE," Mix said. "I felt like I was in school every day learning about different certifica- tions, learning about how the FDA works and approves things, learning what a Level 1 mask is compared to a Level 3 mask. It was mentally and physically very demanding." Dennis and Mix said their email in- boxes were "overrun" with offers, most of which came from organizations or individuals that had never contracted with the state before. protective gear like masks, and to keep workers on their payroll. Counties also felt, and tried to help with, the many ripple effects of the pan- demic. When Oregonians headed outdoors to escape the monotony of quarantine, county parks systems wrestled with how to keep the high volume of campers safe. When businesses had to curtail operations after shutdown orders, counties stepped in with support. And the shift to remote work for many Ore- gon workers highlighted the need for more accessible high-speed internet, which counties provided with relief money. Lane County provided a broad spreadsheet showing reimbursement requests made to the state. Marion and Polk counties provided high-level sum- maries of how much was reimbursed in broad categories of spending, and later, in response to additional requests, pro- vided more detailed information on purchases and spending related to CO- VID-19. According to the data, Lane County got a maximum of $19.9 million in pos- sible reimbursement and had used all of it as of March 26. Marion County, as of late April, had spent about $10.8 million responding to the pandemic. Of that, the county had sought to get $3.9 million reimbursed by the federal CARES Act funds, according to county data. Marion County's maxi- mum possible reimbursement was about $11.4 million. Between March 2020 and April 2021, Polk County spent roughly $2.7 million on pandemic-related goods and ser- vices. Polk County's maximum possible reimbursement was about $2.8 million. Funds go to housing, broadband Nikkel was careful to note that each county faced different issues in the past year. The challenges 2020 presented went above and beyond the COVID-19 pan- demic, from Jerusalem crickets feasting on cattle feed in Lake County to storm damage in Morrow and Jefferson coun- ties. In the Willamette Valley, wildfires tore through the Santiam Canyon and McKenzie River Valley, turning the sky an ominous shade of orange and forcing counties to confront another emergen- cy. In Lane County, a significant share of relief money was put toward housing people who needed shelter. The county bought a recovery center and a former By mid-April, more than 1,200 busi- nesses had reached out. Business Oregon, the state's econom- ic development agency, was tasked with performing an initial public records background check to ensure the busi- ness or individual was a legitimate sup- plier. That list was passed onto DAS, which would ask for verification that the suppliers' PPE met federal guidelines. "The objective, in the beginning, was to buy anything that met the specifica- tions that we could get our hands on," Dennis said. "There was such a shortage at that time that there was no way to buy too much." What Oregon bought, where it went State financial records show millions in federal CARES Act money was spent on masks, goggles, face shields, gloves, medical gowns, hand sanitizer and disin- fectant spray during the first 12 months of the pandemic. Purchases with CARES Act funds in- cluded: h $8.5 million to Blackstrap Industries in Bend for masks. h $24.5 million to Focus Industries Med out of Gold Beach for masks and gloves. h $3.75 million to DWFritz Automation in Wilsonville for N95 masks. h $2.2 million to Halo Branded Solu- tions for medical gowns. h $554,000 to the California Office of Emergency Services for masks. h $405,000 to D6 Inc. for face shields. h $295,000 to Noble Supply and Lo- gistics for face shields. h $831 to Home Depot for Clorox bleach. h $148,000 to Ritz Safety for hand san- itizer. More detailed data from the Depart- ment of Administrative Services showed quantities of each purchase as well, though those records also included items not strictly defined as PPE. The data shows the Department of Ad- ministrative Service's first order of PPE was on March 20 and included: $26,000 to MSC Industrial Supply for 40 boxes of gloves and 160 packages of Tyvek suits; and $475,000 to Rockwell America Ser- vices for 500,000 surgical masks. About $12.5 million was spent be- tween March 20 and the end of the month, but ordering ramped up signifi- cantly in April when at least $81 million in PPE was purchased. Purchasing slowed down significantly after June, with spurts of purchasing N95 masks in September and masks and gloves in November. To distribute the sheer quantity of PPE federal Veterans’ Affairs clinic to use as a shelter that would allow for social dis- tancing. Those purchases weren't on the county's radar before the pandemic, said Robert Tintle, Lane County's finan- cial services manager. The Board of Commissioners ap- proved the purchase of the old VA clinic in direct response to the pandemic as more people struggled with housing and shelters had to limit capacity. In total, Lane County spent $2.5 mil- lion caring for people who weren't able to shelter in place because they didn't have a home. In addition to setting up the recovery center and shelter, the county helped people get food, provided Pallet shelters and gave money to social service organizations. Polk County in its detailed data about COVID-19-related spending did not dis- tinguish between what was funded through the CARES Act and what was funded through other programs. The county spent money transition- ing its workforce to remote work and also put public money toward boosting child care access. These purchases included about $70,000 on cell phone service, about $19,000 on gloves and about $13,000 on masks and mask-making supplies. The county also spent public money to increase the number of kids who could enroll in child care and to build high-speed internet infrastructure. Before the pandemic, there were 74 child care providers in Polk County, said Brent DeMoe, director of the county's Department of Family and Community Outreach. By August 2020, 13 providers had closed their doors due to the pandemic, leaving about 200 fewer child care spots available. In an effort to make up for some of the losses, the county, through a new emer- gency child care fund, ultimately award- ed about $170,000 to providers to open up 75 spots for kids. Polk County spent relief funds to ex- pand internet service to underserved areas of the county, awarding $1 million to Alyrica Networks, Inc. for the project. Marion County’s health program re- ceived relief funds that were “right in tune with what we needed,” said Ryan Matthews, Health and Human Services administrator for the county. The money approved by the CARES Act alleviated “immediate” concerns about the financial impact of the pan- demic on the community and the health department, which provides not only public health services like contact trac- ing, but also behavioral health services, Matthews said. Marion County also provided data that covered all COVID-19-related spending but did not distinguish be- tween what was from CARES Act and what was from other sources. County-provided data showed line items of about $187,000 spent on testing and about $14,600 on masks. There was a period when Marion County officials worried they would run out of time to spend reimbursable mon- ey by the end of 2020, Matthews said. But at the last minute, the federal gov- ernment allowed spending to continue into 2021. “We were extremely nervous because we were still right in the middle of the pandemic,” Matthews said. “And for that funding to have run out at that point in time would have been devastating.” “I don’t even have any sense as to what our vaccine coordination efforts would have been without those re- sources, but it would have really set us back significantly,” he said. Spending priorities changed as the pandemic evolved, Matthews said. At the beginning of the pandemic, the county hired people who could investi- gate and track the spread of the disease. County workers also tried to track down protective gear like masks – in short supply in those early days of the pan- demic – and distribute it to health pro- viders and first responders, Matthews said. The department also had to figure out how to make its own transition to re- mote work. Then the focus moved to testing and then to vaccine distribution. Along the way, the county started using relief funds to partner with local community organizations to do outreach, Matthews said. Tintle described the funds for Lane County as “welcome news.” The county already had been spend- ing money responding to the public health emergency the virus created, he said, so it was a “relief ” that the CARES Act funds became available to help pay for it. While the CARES Act was a "big help," Tintle said, it wasn't enough to pay for everything. “The pandemic didn’t know that the funding ran out,” Tintle said. The biggest cost for Lane County was paying its workers. The payroll costs covered both new the state was bringing in, a recently ac- quired warehouse in Wilsonville was dedicated to the task. It was stood up in a matter of days and was staffed by the Oregon Army National Guard. The Department of Administrative Services delivered PPE to counties, tribes, Oregon Health and Science Uni- versity and other state agencies. Marion County received: 793,905 sur- gical masks, 245,195 N95 masks, 689,250 K95 masks, 104,045 medical gowns, 107,140 face shields and 666,871 pairs of gloves. Marion County's population is about 350,000 people. By comparison, Polk County, which has about 86,000 people, received: 129,959 surgical masks, 66,955 N95 masks, 152,295 KN95 masks, 29,623 medical gowns, 13,573 face shields and 223,925 pairs of gloves. Lane County, which has about 389,000 people, received: 360,931 surgi- cal masks, 120,353 N95 masks, 496,171 KN95 masks, 61,314 medical gown, 42,285 face shields and 252,147 pairs of gloves. Per capita, Marion County received more surgical and KN95 masks and face shields than Polk County, but Polk got more N95 masks, gowns and gloves. Lane County received less per capita than Marion and Polk counties in all cat- egories. Multnomah County received, per capita, less than both Marion and Polk counties, except for KN95 masks and gloves. See FUNDS, Page 4A Local impacts felt despite state efforts Typically, distribution chains for per- sonal protective equipment are set up through each county’s emergency man- agement supply chain: for Polk County that means going through the fire dis- trict; in Marion and Lane counties, it’s going through the county’s emergency management group. The counties were allowed to ask the state for PPE based on their need and the state's supplies but also were encour- aged to continue to order from their nor- mal purveyors. For fire districts, many of which pro- vide ambulance services, getting PPE from the state required going through each county's distributers from the See PPE, Page 4A LOCAL ADVISORS Salem Area Caitlin Davis CFP® Chip Hutchings www.edwardjones.com Member SIPC FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR West | 503-585-1464 Lancaster | 503-585-4689 Jeff Davis Tim Sparks FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR Mission | 503-363-0445 Commercial | 503-370-6159 Garry Falor CFP® Tyson Wooters FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR West | 503-588-5426 South | 503-362-5439 Keizer Area Mario Montiel FINANCIAL ADVISOR Keizer | 503-393-8166 Surrounding Area Bridgette Justis Tim Yount FINANCIAL ADVISOR FINANCIAL ADVISOR Sublimity | 503-769-3180 Silverton | 503-873-2454 Kelly Denney FINANCIAL ADVISOR Dallas | 503-623-2146 OR-GCI0555203-01
