Washington County starts navigation of COVID money rules

The Washington County Board of Supervisors is taking initial steps to figure out how the county can spend its allocation of federal grant money.

Washington County has been allocated more than $4 million from the American Rescue Act of 2021, but the rules on how to spend it are long and not finalized.

The money is intended to help counties with expenses that they incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Supervisor Marcus Fedler reported to the Board of Supervisors Tuesday morning that he met with county department heads last week.

“We started discussing it in that meeting,” Fedler said. “We didn’t have any major direction.”

He said he told department heads to read the guidance memo from the Iowa State Association of Counties and the 150-pages of temporary rules regarding the money from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

“We basically went over the fact sheet,” Fedler said.

He suggested that the department heads could break out into seven different subgroups with others in the departments as well as community members to begin the process of assessing the county’s needs in relation to the rules they have.

Board Chair Richard Young said that the county’s hands are tied until the federal government finalizes the rules.

“We have not received the final rules from the federal government yet,” Young said. “I believe it will be August or after that when they will make the final declaration.”

Until then, Young said that the county will move forward forming committees to “stay ahead of this.”

“I believe we’ll have to wait on the final federal rules before we can spend that money,” Young said. “The only thing we can do is go ahead with what we have now.”