State dispurses $9.2M to county for virus costs

Cape Girardeau County has been designated to receive more than $9.2 million in federal assistance to help cover expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some of that money could be used to test a representative sampling of county residents to determine whether they have coronavirus antibodies, under a proposal the County Commission will consider Monday.

According to Presiding Commissioner Clint Tracy, the Cape Girardeau County Health Center will present a plan to the commissioners to perform serology blood testing on about 2% of the county's population to determine whether they have had coronavirus. That percentage is equal to approximately 1,500 people.

"Up until now these tests have not been available," he said, but noted they've been in discussion with the county health department about such testing for some time.

The tests, Tracy said, would be done "relatively quickly," depending on how quickly testing materials can be ordered and received. With the results "we'll either find out the virus isn't prevalent in the community or we'll be able to confirm it's already been here a long time and we've had wide exposure in the county," he said.

Cost for each test, Tracy estimated, will be about $100, making the total cost for testing 1,500 people approximately $150,000.

"In my mind, that testing would fall right into what that money is supposed to be used for and will give us a better idea of the conditions on the ground here," he said.

The $9,253,142 earmarked for Cape Girardeau County is part of nearly $521 million being distributed to most Missouri counties under the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act passed by Congress earlier this spring to help support the nation's economy during the coronavirus crisis.

Under the act, states were given control over how some of the CARES funds would be allocated and in Missouri, Gov. Mike Parson formed a task force in early April to make distribution recommendations.

The task force, known as the CARES Act Funding Working Group, approved an online application form last week for counties with populations of less than 500,000 to certify their eligibility to receive funds under the CARES Act.

Counties with populations in excess of half a million — Jackson County, which includes the Kansas City area, and St. Louis County — have been earmarked to receive a total of just more than $296 million in coronavirus relief funding through the CARES Act beyond the $521 million being distributed to the rest of the state's counties.

According to Missouri Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick, payments will start going out to counties across the state on Monday with funds being available in county bank accounts by Wednesday.

In a meeting with task force members last week, Fitzpatrick told members he has been reviewing the federal government's guidelines for CARES Act fund usage. According to those guidelines, funds can only be used to cover costs that are "necessary expenditures" incurred due to the coronavirus outbreak between March 1 and Dec. 30 that were not covered by budgets approved as of March 27 when the CARES Act became law. "I think the big takeaway from this," Fitzpatrick said, "is that the money cannot be used to plug budget holes and outright revenue shortfalls" in county budgets.

"There will be a process" for allocating the county's coronavirus expense funding, Tracy said. "We'll be putting some guidelines together to maintain fiscal responsibility. We'll be crossing all the T's and dotting all the I's."

In addition to the $9.2 million set aside for Cape Girardeau County, the CARES Act Funding Working Group has recommended coronavirus expense allocations of $4,491,008 for Scott County, $2,245,035 for Perry County and $1,423,443 for Bollinger County.

A complete list of allocations by county can be found in the coronavirus subsection of the Missouri treasurer's website, www.treasurer.mo.gov/covid.

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