When it's a question of "Use it or lose it" for South Florida governments and federal funds, you can pretty well guess that all logic and reason goes out the window QUICK to spend, spend, spend... But now, state/local governments have an additional year to account for CARES Act funds, so will better decisions be made?
If you are a longtime reader of the Hallandale Beach/Hollywood Blog -let alone a relative newcomer like so many of you are in our stay home New Normal era of coronavirus- I know that you're as shocked as me to learn that in Miami-Dade County, federal CARES Act money is paying for many, many things that are NOT directly related to what most reasonable people would consider any aspect of the COVID19 pandemic.
Or, as a very knowledgeable civic activist friend here in Hollywood told me when this article appeared in the Herald last Thursday, "The thing is, you can only imagine how much worse the flim-flammery must be in Broward!"
Miami Herald
Cities scrambling to meet CARES deadline. Here's why that means more money for police
By Aaron Leibowitz and Joey Flechas, Miami Herald
December 24, 2020
With the deadline to allocate COVID-19 relief funds less than a week away, local governments across Miami-Dade County are scrambling to make sure they don't leave money on the table.
They're giving out more grocery gift cards. They're distributing rent and mortgage assistance. They're even getting reimbursed for costs with no direct connection to the pandemic — namely, salaries for police and firefighters dating back to March.
It's all part of a mad dash to the Dec. 30 deadline for Miami-Dade to distribute $474 million in CARES Act funds. As of Dec. 7, only about half of that money had been spent with more in the pipeline. Among the outstanding amount was $50 million from a $75 million pot intended to reimburse municipalities for COVID-related costs.
"It doesn't look like it's working out very well," said Joseph Corradino, the mayor of Pinecrest and a member of the Miami-Dade League of Cities executive board. "It looks like the deadline is getting short for everybody to get their act together."
Read the rest of the story at: https://t.co/PyLdk40ngg?amp=1
It's even crazier than it sounds when you know that cities
"no longer needed to present documents to justify the use of CARES Act dollars for public safety workers. Instead, police and fire salaries "are deemed significantly COVID-19 related, thereby alleviating the need for extra paperwork such as duty rosters [and] daily activity reports," Miami-Dade's chief financial officer Edward Marquez said in a Dec. 7 memo."
https://twitter.com/aaron_leib/status/1342133685701775360
This in an area of the U.S. renown and some would even say infamous for trying to gouge the federal government, especially when it comes to weather-related cleanups, with many local municipalities specializing in hurricane hocus pocus.
Legitimate expenses related to preparation, response and clean up are one thing, of course, but South Florida is also known for submitting requests to FEMA for cleanup payments when storms did NOT... actually hit our area.
You can only imagine how this all looks to the rest of the country.
I guess it's a good thing the news media, especially national TV, never deigns to mention it, huh?
Miami Herald
FEMA denies Irma money for three cities. One desperately needs it to pay off a loan
By Aaron Leibowitz, Miami Herald
December 2, 2020
The federal government has rejected millions of dollars in requests by three Miami-Dade County municipalities to pay for debris cleanup after Hurricane Irma, saying substantial parts of their submissions failed to properly document the work and prove it was eligible for reimbursement.
El Portal, Miami Shores and Florida City each used the same consultant, Disaster Program & Operations, to help with the complex reimbursement process after the September 2017 storm. After a lengthy review, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the cities submitted flawed paperwork — and not just minor errors.
Read the whole article at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article247519230.html#:~:text=The%20federal%20government%20has%20rejected,it%20was%20eligible%20for%20reimbursement
https://twitter.com/aaron_leib/status/1334132540463046656
Just since I decided to write about this subject on the blog there's been a bit of a pivot in spending and accountability and reimbursement policy because of the language that Congress inserted into the bill that President Trump signed on Sunday.
Miami Herald
Last-minute law change could mean more COVID relief, grocery cards in Miami-Dade
By Douglas Hanks, Joey Flechas and Samantha Gross, Miami Herald
December 29, 2020
Speaking of the serial mis-communicators in chief over the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and its Editorial Board, as of today, they've yet to mention in print that the bill that President Trump signed on Sunday means that CARES Act money given to state and local governments many months ago does NOT have to be used by Dec. 31.
It's no longer "Use it or lose it."
The idea, such as it is, is that some prominent #SoFL bloggers -including me- are considering forming a Working Group in 2021 to critically and publicly examine the many mis-steps of the #Broward and #MiamiDade County Commissions, its cities and certain nonprofits.
That is especially true when it comes to South Florida elected officials' not-so-subtle hypocrisy on curfews and the wearing of face masks, where they prefer the school of Do As I Say, Not As I Do.
Along with some others, I'm planning on bringing some much-needed Sunshine to bear on the issues that in my opinion they have not been getting.
One of the questions to be raised: What happens when unelected Broward County Administrator Bertha Henry makes a decision that is not supported by a majority of the elected nine-member Broward County Commission?
Like, for instance, the recent curfew that went into affect in Broward that will be in effect December 25th through Monday January 4th from midnight to 5:00 a.m. each day, but which will be 1:00 a.m to 5:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve, Thursday night.
Broward Comm. Steve Geller was trotted out for a press conference right before Christmas and reporters, predictably, talked about it without actually saying out loud what the real process involved was, or for that matter, even mentioning that the emergency documents were signed by Henry, not by Geller or any other elected Commissioner.
So, on the one hand, the Broward League of Cities doesn't like the idea that Gov. Ron DeSantis has legally used his powers to prevent Florida cities from collecting fines on any curfew citations issued, but on the other hand, the mayors of Broward cities have made clear that they do NOT want to be seen or described as being a money-hungry politician trying to nickel-and-dime people to death during a pandemic.
That's known as trying to have it both ways, and up until now, the South Florida news media, and especially the four English language TV stations do not seem at all inclined on calling them out on this self-evident hypocrisy.
Bloggers, though, especially ones like myself who are well-informed and fact-based, have no such compunction about publicly calling out the hypocrisy.
As will be made increasingly clear in the coming weeks and months of 2021.
