Connecticut has spent more than $2B responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Here’s a look at where the money went.
Connecticut has spent more than $2 billion responding to the coronavirus pandemic thus far, according to recent estimates from Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget office, with sizable amounts spent on testing, protective equipment and financial help for schools, hospitals and nursing homes.
The expenses range from a $250 million bulk purchase of PPE to $51,000 to pay for sign language interpreters during Lamont’s COVID-19 press briefings. The figures were included in a recent report from the state Office of Policy and Management to state Comptroller Kevin Lembo.
According to that report, most of the costs are expected to be covered by the federal government through coronavirus relief funds, Medicaid funding and reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Administration. But more than $100 million in state tax dollars have been budgeted for coronavirus-related expenses.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the major categories of expenses, and where the money went:
Personal protective equipment: $250 million
Early in the pandemic, PPE like N95 respirators, surgical masks, gowns and gloves was in scarce supply across the country, sending state officials scrambling to find gear needed to outfit everyone from nursing home workers to prison guards. Supplies in the Strategic National Stockpile were quickly depleted, leaving states to fend for themselves.
The report from OPM includes a $250 million “central purchase” of protective supplies during the early months of the pandemic. One high-profile, $15 million shipment was brokered with help from Connecticut billionaire Ray Dalio, a hedge fund kingpin who relied on contacts he had in China to make the deal happen.
Hospitals, nursing homes: About $190 million
The pandemic battered the finances of Connecticut’s hospitals as they dealt with a surge of COVID-19 patients at the same time they had to cancel elective surgeries that are a key revenue source.
In response, the state directed more than $65 million in aid to the hospitals, the majority coming from federal coronavirus relief funds.
Nursing homes, which also struggled to cope with pandemic-related costs, received more than $123 million in direct aid including a $600 per bed, per day payments for facilities that exclusively served patients with COVID-19.
COVID-19 testing: $180 million-plus
The state has spent a significant amount on coronavirus testing since the pandemic first took hold, more than $183 million across various sectors, according to the OPM report.
That figure includes $5 million for testing at UConn, a requirement for students before they could move back on campus. It also includes more than $11.3 million for testing at assisted-living facilities and more than $96.1 million for testing in nursing homes; the funding came with a mandate that nursing homes, hit hard by COVID-19 last spring, test all residents and staff weekly.
Another $66.6 million was budgeted by the Department of Social Services for testing of high-risk populations.
K-12 schools: About $165 million
Schools in most of Connecticut, unlike other parts of the country, opened for in-person learning last fall after extensive planning and measures to make classrooms safe like Plexiglas barriers, one-way hallways and mandatory mask-wearing, with many districts distributing free cloth masks to students and staff. And to accommodate families who chose to keep their children learning at home, schools distributed laptops and tablets to those who didn’t have the proper equipment for online learning.
To help with those unforeseen costs, the state spent about $165 million helping local school districts. The report from OPM includes line items of $37.1 million for academic costs, $9 million for student support, $60.2 million for cleaning and PPE and $20.6 million for transportation. That’s on top of $15 million the state spent on devices for online learning and another $15 million for rapid COVID-19 tests that were distributed for use by school staff and students.
Lamont and state education Commissioner Miguel Cardona, now poised to become the next U.S. education secretary, made keeping schools open for in-person learning a priority through the fall and winter.
Small businesses: $85 million
The state in October launched a $50 million assistance program for small businesses and was swamped with applications from restaurants, bars and other businesses that were struggling to get back on their feet after being forced to shut down earlier in the pandemic.
Ultimately, a total of 10,000 grants of $5,000 each were distributed to businesses and nonprofits that had fewer than 20 full-time employees. Half of the money was set aside for businesses in economically distressed cities and towns.
In December, a second round of funding — $35 million — was allocated for businesses that were a bit larger. Grants of between $10,000 and $30,000 were distributed to between 1,500 and 2,000 businesses who reported revenue losses of 20% or more.
Homelessness and housing insecurity: About $55 million
One of the most vulnerable populations throughout the pandemic has been those in Connecticut who are experiencing homelessness. Social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus was impractical in shelters, so the state worked to place many individuals in hotels that were emptied when the pandemic halted most travel.
The OPM report includes $12.5 million for the hotel initiative as well as a $4.8 million grant to the Stamford nonprofit Pacific House Inc. to purchase a Danbury hotel that would own and operate as a shelter. “The shelter will meet a need in the community brought about by the pandemic’s impact on homeless shelters throughout the region,” the report says.
In addition, $36.6 million in temporary housing assistance was made available for renters who were struggling to make payments due to job loss or other pandemic-related issues.
Unemployment call center and other upgrades: About $37 million
The mass unemployment wrought by the coronavirus quickly overwhelmed the state Department of Labor, forcing officials to spend tens of millions to staff a new call center to handle the increased volume of applications as well as to make upgrades to the department’s aging computer system.
Those expenses are reflected in numerous line items in the OPM report, including just shy of $4 million for six months of call center operations; $1.8 million for call center overtime through Labor Day; $11.6 million for additional staff to support the increased claims, more call center overtime and system enhancements; $5 million for 80 temporary call center staffers through the end of last June; $4.5 million for 90 contracted call center staffers that plan to work through June 30 of this year; and $10 million for call center staffing from July 1 to Dec. 31 of this year as well as additional program support.
Cleaning and disinfecting: $5 million-plus
Unsurprisingly, the state spent millions for materials to clean and disinfect everything from courtrooms to state-operated facilities for the intellectually disabled. Those costs are often lumped in, on a line item basis, with requests for protective equipment and other supplies, so it is difficult to get an exact total, but they include:
$2 million for cleaning and disinfecting of DMV branches.
$902,9036 for cleaning and other costs associated with the Connecticut Convention Center, which has been used as a mass COVID-19 testing site.
$314,849 for cleaning and sanitizing of the XL Center in Hartford and Pratt & Whitney Stadium in East Hartford, the latter of which has offered drive-thru food distribution and COVID-19 tests and vaccines.
$722,090 for deep cleaning of facilities run by the Department of Developmental Services, including the Southbury Training School and other group homes, after a resident or worker tests positive for COVID-19.
$29,000 for additional cleaning of courthouse buildings.
$1.1 million budgeted by the Department of Administrative Services for cleaning and other facility costs.
Russell Blair can be reached at rblair@courant.com.
