Pandemic relief money spent on hotel, ballpark, ski slopes

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many thanks to a sudden $140 million funds infusion, officials in Broward County, Florida, lately broke ground on a substantial-conclusion resort that will have views of the Atlantic Ocean and an 11,000-sq.-foot spa.

In New York, Dutchess County pledged $12 million for renovations of a insignificant league baseball stadium to meet demands the New York Yankees established for their farm teams.

And in Massachusetts, lawmakers sent $5 million to spend off money owed of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate in Boston, a nonprofit founded to honor the late senator that has struggled financially.

The 3 distinctly distinct outlays have a single issue in widespread: Every is between the scores of jobs that condition and community governments throughout the United States are funding with federal coronavirus aid dollars inspite of obtaining tiny to do with combating the pandemic, a assessment by The Associated Press has discovered.

The expenses amount to a portion of the $350 billion designed readily available via past year’s American Rescue Prepare to aid condition and community governments temperature the crisis. But they are illustrations of works by using of the help that are inconsistent with the rationale that Democrats offered for the record $1.9 trillion monthly bill: The funds was desperately essential to save careers, support those in distress, open faculties and enhance vaccinations.

Republicans are previously balking at further income for pandemic aid that President Joe Biden has asked for, and applications that feel far eliminated from kinds that instantly beat the virus will possibly increase to the resistance in the GOP.

“They need to give us an accounting,” mentioned Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who tried using unsuccessfully to amend the Democrats’ bill final year to incorporate additional limits on how the funds could be used. “Show us how you have previously put in the income Congress gave you,” he said, introducing, “It’s challenging to envision how a 4-star resort is serving to to fix the agony of COVID.”

Many of the initiatives discovered by the AP echo pork-barrel paying out disasters this kind of as Alaska’s $398 million “Bridge to Nowhere,” which was canceled in 2007 following a general public uproar.

But with permissive Treasury Division guidelines governing how the pandemic cash can be invested, point out and community governments deal with handful of limitations. New Jersey allotted $15 million for updates to sweeten the state’s bid to host the 2026 Earth Cup. In Woonsocket, Rhode Island, officials allotted $53,000 for a reworking of Metropolis Hall.

“Outrageous” and “just nuts” is how Rep. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., explained some of the expenses, which she claimed were being an affront to liable neighborhood governments.

“Our hospitals were being confused simply because of the pandemic and any person now has a lodge someplace?” she additional.

Included among the assignments and expenditures determined by the AP:

—$400 million to construct new prisons in Alabama, accounting for just about one-quarter of the total help the point out will get as a result of the method.

—tens of tens of millions of pounds for tourism advertising campaigns in Puerto Rico ($70 million), Washington, D.C. ($8 million) and Tucson, Arizona ($2 million). The metropolis of Alexandria, Virginia, also introduced it would expend $120,000 to give its tourism web site a makeover.

—$6.6 million to swap irrigation methods at two golf programs in Colorado Springs.

—$5 million permitted by Birmingham, Alabama, to support the 2022 Entire world Video games. The party characteristics specialized niche sporting contests these types of as DanceSport, korfball and traveling disc.

—$2.5 million to use new parking enforcement officers in Washington, D.C.

—$2 million to aid Pottawattamie County, Iowa, order a privately owned ski region.

—$1 million to pay out off overdue child assist in St. Louis. A city memo states that owing baby assist stops some folks from looking for work because the overdue payments are garnished from paychecks the application would “empower individuals” by paying down a portion.

—$300,000 to build a museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, honoring Key Taylor, a famed Black bicycle rider from the turn of the 20th century regarded as the “Worcester Whirlwind” who died in 1932.

Liz Bourgeois, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Office, named the method a success that authorized state and local governments to “recover from financial distress” and “achieve their very own procedures for restoring careers and industries strike by the pandemic.”

“Ultimately regional governments are accountable to their communities on their choices on how best to use their money,” Bourgeois said in a statement.

In Broward County, officials defended their prepared 29-story, 800-room lodge, which will be owned by the county but operated by a private management group.

They also contest irrespective of whether federal income is technically staying used for the undertaking. Broward County originally routed $140 million in federal coronavirus aid to the challenge, which ran in opposition to Treasury Section procedures that normally bar spending the dollars on large money projects.

To get all around the prohibition, the county adopted a common workaround.

The agenda from a Feb. 22 county board conference information how: In a back again-to-back again collection of unopposed votes, commissioners clawed back the federal cash they had supplied to the hotel. They then transferred it to the county’s normal fund, describing it as a federal payment to address missing tax income, which is an acceptable use. Then the income was transferred from the standard fund right back again to the venture.

County Administrator Monica Cepero insisted “no federal resources will be used to pay out any of the expense of creating the Lodge Challenge.”

“The County has reviewed the Treasury advice and modified its use of (the) resources,” she said in a statement.

Some lawmakers in Congress, however, are nonplussed.

“They are mainly cash laundering funding that is meant to assist communities that are struggling,” said Spanberger, who named for far more oversight.

Nearby officials in New York’s Dutchess County, household to the $12 million slight league stadium task, explained in a assertion that the expenditure was “completely and totally consistent” with Congress’ intent for the cash.

“It’s ironic that this criticism emanates from the similar congressional users who have introduced back again pork barrel earmarks,” claimed Dutchess County Govt Marcus Molinaro.

The Edward Kennedy Institute did not reply to messages seeking remark on the $5 million in coronavirus aid gained from Massachusetts. The institute operated at a $27 million decline involving 2015 and 2019, according to tax filings from people years, the most recent that are publicly obtainable.

Even in circumstances exactly where community and point out officials may have violated the investing guidelines, the sheer quantity of money pumped out provides a obstacle for federal government oversight workplaces that are often understaffed and poorly funded.

“The amount of money of revenue that went out was so substantial and so considerably beyond anything that has ever been expended in our nation before, that our capability to audit each individual dollar put in is clearly stretched,” Romney reported.

But groups that foyer on behalf of community governments in Washington say the spending rules were being composed permissively in order to give as significantly flexibility as feasible.

“Counties must be ready to ascertain what is most effective for them,” said Mark Ritacco, director of federal government affairs for the National Association of Counties. “Their inhabitants will choose regardless of whether that was ideal or not at the ballot box.”

The new results observe carefully with AP’s preceding reporting, which located in October that states and massive cities had spent just a tiny fraction of their aid funding 6 months following it was accepted. That was in spite of their pleas for the emergency money when Congress was however debating it.

Some college districts also had so much extra federal pandemic income that they invested it on new athletics stadiums, arenas and soccer turf. In other situations, states utilised discretionary funding to further more college option initiatives that they experienced unsuccessful to get by way of their legislatures.

Rich Delmar, the deputy inspector common for the Treasury Office, declined to say whether the business experienced any active investigations into employs of the point out and neighborhood pot of income.

“All assignments are perhaps topic to audit and investigation,” Delmar mentioned in an e-mail, introducing that “we are actively engaging in oversight.”

Biden, in the meantime, has claimed his administration urgently demands extra money to pay back for factors that are right relevant to the pandemic.

Without the need of it, the White Home states, the administration will not be in a position to replenish depleted stockpiles of vaccines and therapeutics. Republican say profitable their guidance will hinge on it being paid for with money that was presently appropriated.

A offer that leaders struck this month would have been paid for by recouping some help supposed for states. But the settlement fell aside right after several governors objected and rank-and-file Property Democrats rebelled.

At least a person Democrat sought to raise campaign cash off her opposition to clawing community income back again.

“We experienced a bit of a battle when they experimented with to just take cash absent from Michigan,” reads a fundraising email from Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell. “I was not heading to let the Midwest get harmed. We received.”

___

Connected Press author Alan Fram contributed to this report.