here’s how Santa Clara County plans to spend a whole lot of thousands and thousands in federal COVID-19 relief money

© offered through Mercury news SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 25: Patrick Garcia, right, an LVN, licensed vocational nurse, administers a COVID-19 look at various to Christine King at the free COVID-19 testing web page in Expo hall at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay enviornment information neighborhood)

Santa Clara County has some huge bucks to spend.

through may additionally 2022, the federal government will dole out $374.4 million to the county as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. It's cash that is meant to be spent by way of cities, counties and states to get better from the pandemic as a part of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package signed with the aid of President Joe Biden in March.

The county already determined to spend $seventy six million of the funds on "hero pay" exams for roughly 22,000 county workers, who will get a maximum of $2,500 counting on their work status. The choice to hand out the bonuses turned into criticized through some county workers who felt not all their colleagues deserved it and San Jose councilmember and mayoral candidate Matt Mahan, who considered the cash as a misuse of public dollars. Union individuals and leaders then pushed back on Mahan, declaring he had voted to approve $1,000 bonuses for metropolis laborers all the way through the summer time. Mahan later called that an "apples to oranges" evaluation.

On Tuesday, the county supervisors will get hold of a suggestion from the county govt about to spend the final $300 million. The supervisors can both approve the proposed allocations or present their own guidance. here is the county's thought:

$157 million for county COVID-19 fees now not coated by using Federal Emergency administration agency reimbursements. This contains vaccine outreach and schooling, testing, variant monitoring, housing, quarantine and isolation fees, expanding healthcare means charges, contact tracing and "future" affects that the pandemic may additionally have on the county.

$65.3 million for mental fitness, homelessness and different healthcare costs:

$13.1 million for the "Heading home" campaign, a plan to condo every homeless family unit within the county by way of 2025

$30.4 million for behavioral fitness services aimed toward the homeless, families, migrant farm laborers and people within the criminal justice equipment

$21.8 million for upgrading the county's health information gadget, a case manager who oversees homeless veterans over the path of 18 to 24 months, households within the newborn welfare device who're at-risk for homelessness, adults who're beneath probation or in pre-trial services to assist evade homelessness, formative years substance abuse care, mental telehealth features, upgrading mental health electronic information, placement functions for "severely mentally unwell" sufferers and an upgraded intellectual health administration application

$seventy four.7 million in promises, household-focused functions, and upgrades to county infrastructure:

$10 million for nonprofits within the county who skilled economic difficulty on account of the pandemic

$20 million to guide families impacted through the pandemic

$10 million to support scholar mental health capabilities

$34.7 million for outreach and engagement at homeless encampments with a focus on households, wages for people that lost their job all the way through the pandemic, increasing the approval cost for disabled people who obtain month-to-month Supplemental security revenue funds, practicing and building of childcare employees, meal beginning to seniors, bonuses for county fire branch employees (cut loose the $seventy six million in "hero pay" exams), replacing and upgrading defibrillators for the county fire branch, upgrading video convention services in county jails, a two-12 months pilot software that might pace up remedy placements for individuals serving time in jail or courtroom and nonprofits and corporations who want air filtration gadgets to flow into air to avoid COVID-19 infections

at the least one supervisor pointed out they have an issue with how half the cash is proposed to be spent.

District 4 Supervisor Susan Ellenberg talked about Monday she disagrees with spending $157 million for pandemic-connected expenses the county has shouldered because FEMA should still pay that. In March 2020, President Donald Trump directed FEMA to reimburse local and state governments for 75 % of COVID-19 expenses, a figure that President Biden later increased to 100 percent.

"That should now not be a part of the funding," Ellenberg spoke of. "I'm not at all satisfied that FEMA repayment usually are not obtainable. We get rid of the probability to apply (for reimbursements) if we allocate ARPA funds. I consider it's crucial we hold that door open."

Ellenberg also referred to despite the fact tens of tens of millions of greenbacks are already allocated to early childhood capabilities within the proposal, she would want to see even more funding in that enviornment. additionally, she said she needs to look $10 million go against small company offers, anything that didn't make it into the suggestion.

County govt Jeffrey Smith and supervisors Joe Simitian, Mike Wasserman, Otto Lee and Cindy Chavez had been unavailable for remark.