Republicans and Democrats in the Minnesota Legislature are at odds over the allocation of funds to counties from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to counties. Minnesota received $1.87 billion dollars from the CARES ACT, with a portion, $667 million, to go to counties, cities, and towns struggling with COVID-19.
Hennepin and Ramsey County were able to petition directly for those funds due to their population size, receiving a combined $317 million. According to Senator Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, the allocation to Hennepin and Ramsey County equated to about $174 per resident. Johnson said the GOP-led Senate bill to allocate the remaining funds is fair and equitable because it allocates $174 per resident to the counties that haven’t received funds yet.“It’s a way of allocating the funds in a fair and equitable manner based on population size,” said Johnson. “Hennepin County got almost $221 million; Ramsey got almost $100 million based on their population. Hennepin County is 1.2 million people and Ramsey County is 500,000 people. Those amounts correlate roughly to $174 per person, so what they’ve done is Ramsey and Hennepin County have got this money, wouldn’t it be fair to take the remaining dollars and allocate it in the same way. That is what the Senate bill is trying to do.”
Johnson said the funds allocated would be for COVID-19 related expenses and those expenses would have to be incurred by sometime in the fall or the money would return to the state, and if unspent there, eventually to the federal government. “These are federal dollars that came from the first Federal CARES Act to spend on COVID-related expenses,” said Johnson. “So, the counties actually have to spend this by I believe it’s September or November. If that doesn’t happen it rolls back to the state and if the state doesn’t spend it by a certain date it rolls back to the federal government. These are pretty important dollars. I think Polk County if we go with the Senate bill, will get $5.5 million. That’s a pretty good kick to the county for COVID-related expenses, whether that’s PPE (personal protective equipment), or the different ways the funds are used across the county to prepare for COVID. And then counties are supposed to allocate that to the cities and townships as well so that they may have some dollars too.”
The DFL majority in the House has its own proposal which would allocate additional funds to the state’s largest population centers in Hennepin and Ramsey counties. Hennepin County has the most positive cases of COVID-19 by county in the state as of Wednesday, May 13 with 4,183 positive cases according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Ramsey County has the fourth most cases in the state with 1,124.
Johnson said he’s surprised and disappointed that the DFL-led House is throwing up a roadblock over the equitable allocation of relief funds. “The House Democrats are controlling the House as you say,” said Johnson. “And one of the things with them is that most of their constituency is within Hennepin and Ramsey County metropolitan area. So, if they see those dollars going to outstate, I think they will probably see a problem with that and try to figure out ways to bring dollars back to their communities and their city even though they already got one bite of the apple. I think out of fairness, being able to take the rest of the dollars outside the metro area like it was intended shouldn’t be to controversial and quite frankly, I’m surprised they are putting up a fight on this. It seems like a very fair allocation for citizens across the state and if this is one Minnesota, shouldn’t we all be treated the same throughout this? So, I’m very disappointed they are throwing up a roadblock in getting this money out to our citizens.”
The Senate will be back on the floor later Wednesday, and if there is any movement on the allocation of the CARES Act funds to the outstate counties, we will have an update with Senator Johnson.
