Hundreds of millions in federal pandemic money is still unspent in RI. What comes next?

PROVIDENCE – A new state Senate report says more than $90 million in federal money sent to Rhode Island to fight COVID-19 remains unspent, and the status of hundreds of millions in aid meant for state housing programs is murky.

The report from the Senate Fiscal Office released Thursday analyzes how much of the $1.1 billion in American Rescue Plan aid has been spent and alerts lawmakers to money in danger of being returned to the federal government. Any Rescue Plan money not budgeted by the end of this year and spent by the end of 2026 must be sent back to Washington.

What's going on with the $321 million for housing?

Senate analysts identified about a dozen programs – representing Rescue Plan appropriations of more than $160 million – that have failed to spend at least a quarter of the money set aside for them. They include the Department of Health's ongoing pandemic response, small business assistance programs and the South Quay wind power terminal project that port officials are hoping to resuscitate.

But the report raises the biggest red flag above the state Housing Department, which oversees more than a dozen programs approved for $321.5 million in Rescue Plan money over several years.

The Senate Fiscal Office "made repeated requests to the Department of Housing for a status update on the components of the Development of Affordable Housing initiatives," the new report said. "As of Dec. 15, 2023,the Department of Housing had not provided a response to these requests. This is the second year in a row that thedepartment has not responded to Senate Fiscal Office requests for information."

Housing Secretary Stefan Pryor has said the department needs all of its pandemic aid and has already dedicated most of it to specific projects, but cautions that building affordable housing takes time. Indeed, many of the privately built affordable-housing projects that receive government subsidies in Rhode Island take many years to complete.

"We transmitted the requested information on 12/26 to both the Senate and House Fiscal staff," Department of Housing spokeswoman Patti Doyle said in an email response to the Senate report. "We are grateful for the legislature's focus on housing and homelessness and we look forward to continued collaboration with the General Assembly on these important issues."

State housing plan draws scrutiny

The report also spotlights the Housing Department's ongoing efforts to write a statewide housing plan, something that helped get Pryor's predecessor in political hot water.

The Department of Housing is to receive $2.5 million to come up with new housing plans, but less than a quarter of that has been spent, the report said. (In September the department announced that it had hired Abt Associates to help write a new housing plan.)

The Senate report questioned $150,000 that the department said it needed to hire "a new consultant and attorney to review and make recommendations on how the state should best organize around housing governance," topics addressed in reports produced over the last two years.

"In light of this history and the secretary’s previous positions, it appears that the $150,000 of new plannedexpenditures to support additional review and advisement of housing governance may be redundant andunnecessary," the Senate report said.

Ruggerio: 'I want to see how that money has been dispensed'

In an interview with the Journal last month, Senate President Dominick Ruggerio appeared exasperated with the pace of Rescue Plan spending on housing.

"We provided over $300 million for housing. I want to see ... how that money has been dispensed," Ruggerio said. "I expected that money would have been spent before the winter came, and that really hasn't happened."

The other area of the report with significant state budget implications identified a significant amount of federal cash set aside to fight the COVID pandemic that is not likely to be used for that purpose.

The state has appropriated $115 million in Rescue Plan funds for the public health response to COVID. Of that, about $9 million has been spent and $92 million is in programs – including testing, epidemiology and a vaccine campaign – that the Senate report flagged as in danger of not being spent.

Gov. Dan McKee is set to release his annual state budget this month, and the report said his Department of Administration intends to find a new use for a large chunk of these public health dollars.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI still hasn't spent millions in American Rescue Plan Act money