By Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
Barren County’s final allocation for what is known as “premium pay” from federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for healthcare personnel who worked during the COVID-19 pandemic but missed the first round of allocations was approved by Barren County Fiscal Court at its special meeting Thursday.
The ARPA Committee of the fiscal court met earlier this week to review the applications with Krista Steenbergen, a consultant hired to help guide the county through the correct uses of the ARPA funds. In the absence of District 2 Magistrate Trent Riddle, who chairs that committee, District 3 Magistrate Carl Dickerson started the update to the full court, and Steenbergen answered several questions in the process as well, mostly from District 5 Magistrate Mark Bowman.
Magistrate Mark Bowman expresses an opinion about expenditure of funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act during Thursday’s special meeting of Barren County Fiscal Court. Melinda J. Overstreet / Glasgow News 1
She said her spreadsheet has well over 900 names on it who had asked about receiving the funds, and she thinks they ended up with 44 healthcare providers who have requested funds and showed proof of employees who meet the requirements, so now she has a list of each business with the names of their approved personnel they can send with the checks. The money has to go through employers rather than directly to the employees, because the income is taxable, so the employers will need to take out the necessary deductions.
Steenbergen said there are a few people she still needs to follow up with to get some last questions answered before those checks can be issued; for example, if they had more than one employer, she needs to know which is the most recent.
The total amount committed for this group of people is going to be between $400,000 and $500,000, she said, probably closer to the lower number.
Dickerson said that before these expenditures, the balance of the ARPA funds was $3,125,362, and at that point, with still those few to clarify, they were expecting this round’s total to be around $435,000.
She had prepared contracts for each of the affected employers to sign so they understand the funds have to be used as directed by the court and in accordance with ARPA guidelines.
Eventually, Dickerson made a motion to approve that 458 workers to receive $950 each (before deductions), and Steenbergen asked him to change the wording to “approximately” those amounts because of those from whom she needs final details, so he did. The eight members present, two of which were via video stream, agreed unanimously.
No new requests will be considered for this particular use of the ARPA funds, as the deadline to apply was Oct. 11.
Aside from routine business items such as payment of claims, funds transfers, budget adjustments, financial statements, etc., the fiscal court also approved:
— a resolution approving the procurement of a loan for roughly $3.66 million for the preliminary costs, such as land purchase, toward the construction of a new justice center, addressed in a separate report by Glasgow News 1;
— a request for purchase orders for three used Ford Explorers for the sheriff’s office for just shy of $60,000;
— adoption of a new five-year solid-waste plan;
— first reading of an ordinance to change the speed limit petition for Frontage Road to 25 miles per hour; and
— first reading of a budget-amendment ordinance, followed by an emergency declaration due to financial reporting requirements, and second reading.
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