Auditor reports Missouri spent $8.82B of $11.8B in federal COVID-19 funds

(The Heart Sq.) – Missouri acquired greater than $11.8 billion in federal COVID-19 funding since April 2020, in response to the most recent report from Democratic Missouri Auditor Nicole Galloway.

By means of the top of November, Missouri spent $6.47 billion in funds from the Coronavirus Support, Aid and Financial Safety Act and different federal applications, in response to the report. The report acknowledged $2.35 billion in American Rescue Plan Act funds have been spent by way of November.

Galloway reported a big quantity of expenditures have been for companies by way of Missouri’s Medicaid program and different applications receiving federal matching funds. The federal authorities elevated the proportion of its price of Missouri’s Medicaid program beneath the Households First Coronavirus Response Act.

ARPA funds additionally supplied Missouri a short lived improve within the federal funds matching charge in trade for the state’s Medicaid growth. The federal authorities’s elevated share of the price of Medicaid was greater than $2 billion.

Native governments, faculties, institutes of upper schooling, baby care suppliers, long-term care services and developmental disabilities waiver suppliers acquired the federal pandemic funds. Federal cash additionally was spent on psychological well being companies, buying of non-public protecting tools, virus testing, contact tracing, vaccine preparedness and entry, workforce growth, financial growth applications for small companies, emergency rental help, catastrophe reduction and personnel prices associated to pandemic companies.

The state departments receiving most funds have been social companies ($2.97 billion), elementary and secondary schooling ($1.77 billion), public security ($1.56 billion), workplace of administration ($1.15 billion) and financial growth ($744 million).

The state’s prime vendor receiving funds was labeled as all social service program reimbursements ($1.78 billion), together with Medicaid and the kids’s medical insurance applications. The opposite prime distributors receiving federal funds have been the Missouri Housing Growth ($741 million), the College of Missouri-Columbia ($77 million), SLSCO, LTD, ($72.3 million) a common contracting and development administration agency offering catastrophe and emergency response, development, growth, well being and infrastructure companies, and the Hazelwood College District ($71.6 million), positioned in north St. Louis County.

The highest 5 native governments or businesses receiving federal help have been St. Charles County ($47.3 million), Metropolis of St. Louis ($35.6 million), Greene County ($34.7 million), Clay County ($29.4 million) and OATS Integrated ($28.4 million), a nonprofit offering transportation companies in rural areas and for senior residents and folks with disabilities.