By Martin Hawver
Well, the out-of-session Legislature watched last week as the governor’s Strengthening People and Revitalizing Kansas (SPARK) task force doled out an even $400 million to Kansas counties to help them meet the costs they’ve seen due to the COVID-19 pandemic effects that have swept the world, nation and…well, Kansas…
Legislators, most of whom want to continue spending winters in Topeka, and even those who have had enough and will retire, are wondering just what that money is going to buy. And…if there’s a political upside for them in, well, while not actually having voted for that money for locals, waving as the money went to their home districts.
And, they’re also going to be watching to see just how the county commissions in each of the state’s 105 courthouses divide that money up, since its allocation a few days ago, between cities, townships, rural water districts, school districts…you name it, nearly any outfit that can assert to commissioners that the virus and its stay-home and stay-closed orders have shaken those small local economies.
Problem, of course, is that most legislators, and most Kansans, don’t have any idea of just what the shut-downs, the overtime for some workers, the expenses of working at home and even those face masks actually cost. And, whether those county commissioners are going to distribute their county’s apportionment to real needs or try to find ways to use it to boost their local budgets.
Lots unknown about this initial SPARK federal money distribution, and lots of money going to courthouses to spread across public and private operations.
Did the closure of schools, the shutdown of parts of water districts and of township water departments, the additional security at public buildings, all that moving of COVID-19 testing materials, the actual test specimens and Personal Protection Equipment cost local units of government much money? How much?
Amounts awarded varied, including $340,000 in Comanche County and $25 million in Douglas County. Where is that money to go, and will it stay in just the county budgets or will it be spread to reduce the financial impact on the local schools, hospitals, police and fire departments and everything else we expect government to pay for with our tax money?
Yes, isolating those pandemic-related additional costs is going to be tricky for nearly every local unit of government. Oh, and will counties spread that money to private businesses which suffered economic hardship due to the disease?
It’s all out in the counties, but count on it, legislators are going to want to win some credit—and votes?—for at least being at the top of the chain that sent those checks to local units of government.
Don’t forget that the money has to be directly tied to additional expenses which are linked to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, at the state level and at some point when the federal government auditors start thumbing through the check stubs to see whether this was actually a pandemic-related cost that counties are distributing money to solve or maybe just some new police and sheriff’s cars that are easier to keep clean—and avoid spreading the disease to the public.
Also, remember that the county commissioners are going to want political credit for dispersing that money within the county lines, whether it’s helping defray the cost of those six-foot social distance reminders we see on the floors of nearly every store we’ve entered, or those stacks of facemasks and jugs of hand sanitizer near the doors of those stores and businesses and schools and government offices.
Next step, finding out whether those SPARK dollars cause future problems for local units of government. We’ll wait for the auditors to tell us, won’t we…
Syndicated by Hawver News Company LLC of Topeka; Martin Hawver is publisher of Hawver's Capitol Report—to learn more about this nonpartisan statewide political news service, visit the website at www.hawvernews.com