COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL | JANUARY 21, 2021
Fund
from A1
COVID-dominated land-
scape.
“We kind of took the
approach of spending [the
funds] on things and we
tried not to spend as much
as we could have on actu-
al salaries or wages, which
were already in the budget,”
he said.
Some examples of such
spending included the pur-
chase of portable toilets
and sanitizing stations for
public use and technolog-
ical upgrades to the city’s
virtual public meeting
equipment.
Although the U.S. De-
partment of the Treasury
changed its policy months
ago, allowing the relief
money to be used for emer-
gency and public safety
staff, Meyers said the city
opted instead to stick with
what he interprets as the
original intent of the relief
package.
Meyers estimates that
police officers, for instance,
spent more than $68,000
worth of time cleaning ve-
hicles, jails and extra disin-
fection which was required
by new COVID-related
standards, but such staff
hours were already budget-
ed and so left out of the re-
quests for reimbursement.
However, staff who took
leave because of COVID,
such as those needing
childcare for children no
longer in school or those
caring for someone with
COVID, were reimbursed
with the relief funds.
As reported by The Or-
egonian in October, state
auditors found in a review
that cities, counties and
other local governments
had used the majority of
federal coronavirus relief
money available to them
for payroll and employee
leave costs.
Congress sent $1.4 bil-
lion to Oregon last year as
part of the national relief
fund to help states pay for
pandemic-related expens-
es.
It was reported that state
auditors found that, of the
$91 million in reimburse-
ments that governments
requested by Sept. 22, 65
percent was for payroll or
leave costs.
Kip Memmott, director
of the state Audits Divi-
sion, was reported to have
summarized the findings
in a letter to the Depart-
ment of Administrative
Services, which is tasked
with distributing the funds.
“Spending on more di-
rect services to affected
populations — such as
homeless services, food
delivery to residents, and
quarantining individuals
— has been relatively low
by comparison,” Memmott
wrote.
Local Spending
Comparatively, Cottage
Grove has used the funds
largely for items other than
payroll and employee leave.
In all, payroll expens-
es, which were geared
toward employee hours
substantially
dedicated
to COVID-related work,
came to about $9,656,
which paid for tasks such
as the building of sneeze
guards and installing sani-
tation stations.
The largest person-
nel-oriented funding went
to paid sick leave and paid
family medical leave, which
is required by law, at almost
$41,000.
Other categories of the
city’s spending included
$3,505 for medical and
protective supplies, $4,218
in communication and en-
forcement and $15,450 for
the application of public
safety measures.
An amount of $29,692
also went toward disinfect-
ing public areas and facil-
ities, which involved the
sanitation of bathrooms
and playground equipment
as well as the installation of
REME HALOs, an in-duct
air purifier technology.
the county had already
purchased the shelters us-
ing CARES Act funds, Cot-
tage Grove could not use
the same funds to procure
them from the county.
Currently, the county re-
tains ownership of the shel-
ters and is lending them to
other cities such as Flor-
ence and Oakridge as well.
Around $59,000 in re-
maining funds are being
requested in the current
window of reimbursement
for other expenditures such
as technological improve-
ments to the city’s telework
equipment, which allows
for public access to virtual
public meetings.
The equipment upgrades
are planned to continue of-
fering virtual meetings and
online streaming as a new
option for the public.
As no additional federal
funding for municipalities
has yet been authorized,
Meyers is detailing oth-
er related expenditures in
hopes of making the case
to higher levels of govern-
ment that cities could use
10% OFF REPAIRS OR SERVICE ON
00
100
more aid.
“We are going to ac-
tually document and say,
‘Here’s where we’re using
all the coronavirus mon-
ey that you provided to
us. But here’s another 100
and some thousand that
we’ve spent that we also
need – that we spent our
own money to take care of
COVID-related stuff,’” he
said.
In the meantime, a res-
olution to appropriate the
federal relief aid reim-
bursements back into the
budget is scheduled for the
Feb. 8 Cottage Grove City
Council meeting.
City council meetings
can be attended online
by clicking on the GoTo-
Meeting link provided on
the corresponding agenda
page at www.cottagegrove.
org/meetings.
Note: Some expenditures
were rounded off for the
purposes of this article and
may not reflect exact dol-
lars upon calculation.
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The purifiers were in-
stalled in public buildings
such as City Hall, the Com-
munity Center, the city jail
and the water and sewer
plants.
About $30,414 was also
dedicated to small business
interruption grants, which
targeted local businesses
suffering from the effects
of COVID-related restric-
tions.
A considerable portion
of the allocated funding,
about $135,305, was spent
on care for homeless pop-
ulations. This category in-
cluded the purchase and
maintenance of portable
toilets and site prepara-
tion for the newly estab-
lished Community Sharing
Warming Shelter.
Tents, a defibrillator
and a forthcoming mobile
shower trailer were includ-
ed in these expenditures.
The city had originally
intended on purchasing
the Pallet Shelters current-
ly on site at the warming
shelter. However, it later
came to light that because
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