Gov. Tony Evers says the state is bracing for having to return federal pandemic funding under the debt limit deal

MADISON – Wisconsin officials are preparing to send back some of the federal pandemic funding that has not yet been spent under a deal between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to raise the country's debt limit as a federal government default looms.

Gov. Tony Evers told reporters on Tuesday his administration is planning for the possibility, which could result in Wisconsin losing some of the $447 million in federal funds state officials have not yet spent out of the billions it was allocated as part of federal laws passed by Congress to help states navigate and recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

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"We haven't heard anything because I don't think the written document exists so we are planning all across our agencies," Evers told reporters in Brown Deer, according to WISN-TV. "We're looking at what is known and seeing how much money we would have to send back but at this point in time we're not anywhere near because they aren't anywhere near soup yet."

The agreement between Biden and McCarthy to suspend the nation’s borrowing limit proposes to claw back about $30 billion in unspent federal pandemic relief dollars, some of which will be repurposed.

It's unclear exactly how much Wisconsin could be required to return. As of March, the state had not obligated or spent $447 million in pandemic relief funding, according to the Evers administration. But details as to what kind of funds would be eligible to be clawed back by federal officials under the deal were not released as of Tuesday.

Britt Cudaback, a spokeswoman for Evers, said the administration is "closely monitoring the ongoing conversations at the federal level regarding any potential recissions."

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he had started to have some conversations about the potential for federal funding to be taken back but that he did not have any concrete information about how or if the city would be impacted.

There have been no conversations with the governor's office about the return of federal relief funds, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley's office told the Journal Sentinel.

Milwaukee County has allocated federal emergency funds to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, tackle housing insecurity, as well as increase residents' access mental and behavioral health resources and support.

'We have and will continue to leverage one-time funding to support community needs, even as we prioritize conversations with leaders in Madison to identify a long-term solution to avoid a quickly approaching fiscal cliff and continue county services residents rely on each day," Crowley said in a statement Tuesday.

McCarthy has said the money should be returned to the federal government because it was intended for the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat of which has diminished greatly with the development of vaccines.

"If the money was authorized to fight the pandemic but was not spent during the pandemic, it should not be spent after the pandemic is over,” he said in April.

The federal public health emergency declared at the beginning of 2020 ended May 11. The amount of funding remaining from six relief laws passed during the public health emergency is a moving target.

When the GOP-controlled House passed a bill in April to raise the debt limit in exchange for cutting various types of spending, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated clawing back pandemic funding would save about $30 billion. Government accountants excluded $316 billion in remaining funds that the government is legally obligated to pay out. An additional $16 billion that CBO estimated would be committed before any deal was finalized was also excluded.

The remaining $30 billion is dwarfed by the more than $31 trillion in debt the nation owes.

Alison Dirr and Vanessa Swales of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Maureen Groppe of USA Today contributed to this report.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Evers says state may have to return pandemic aid under debt limit deal