State Lawmakers Start Process Of Allocating COVID Relief Funds
Lawmakers are on a tight deadline as they start to sort out how to allocate the more than $1 billion of federal pandemic relief money coming into the state.
Most of the money from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, is already earmarked for specific programs, but Congress left other pots of money for the Legislature to allocate.
That allocation is in House Bill 632, which needs to be ready for the full House by March 25.
Lawmakers broke into subcommittees Monday, March 15, to start the process, but they are still working with limited information. President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act March 11. Rep. Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, is the chairman of the subcommittee dealing with money for the state Department of Health and Human Services.
“That breakdown — of what is restricted and what is flexible,” Regier said, “would that be something we could get by tomorrow?”
The subcommittees need to make their recommendations to the larger committee by Thursday. Rep. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, told lawmakers before they broke into subcommittees that he knows it’s a challenge.
“It’s a lot of work, and I get that, but it is the cards we were dealt,” Jones said.
( Publisher’s Note: James Bradley is a reporter with the UM Legislative News Service, a partnership of the University of Montana School of Journalism, the Montana Broadcasters Association, the Montana Newspaper Association and the Greater Montana Foundation.)
