ALBUQUERQUE – City officials in Albuquerque have said they spent all of the coronavirus relief aid the city received in April as new federal legislation extended the time local governments are able to use the funding.
City finance officials say the municipal government has spent or otherwise applied all $150 million in relief aid in an effort to meet the original Dec. 30 spending deadline, the Albuquerque Journal reported Wednesday.
Chief Financial Officer Sanjay Bhakta said most of the money went to paying first responders. The city applied $120 million, or 80% of the funding, to personnel costs.
The extension “gives us a little more time to reconcile everything, but we don’t have that issue of running out of time (to spend it),” Bhakta said.
The money helped the city avoid employee cuts and service reductions and expand operations, including eviction prevention, meal delivery for homebound seniors and operating costs associated with increased use of city parks.
“Without this money, it would’ve been very, very difficult,” Bhakta said. “I can’t imagine what kind of cuts we would have to make (without it).”
The coronavirus relief bill restricted how local governments could spend the money, requiring that it go only to expenditures related to COVID-19 that were not already included in budgets before March 27.
In addition to personnel, the city used the money on direct economic relief, including $11.2 million for business grants, $2.5 million in emergency grants for vulnerable residents and $1 million for nonprofit grants. Another $3 million went to assist people living on the street, including hand-washing stations and portable toilets.
While the city has not completed the account reconciliation outlining all final spending from the relief law, other planned expenditures included mobile Wi-Fi units, assistance for organizations helping domestic violence survivors, grants for artists and a new projector for the city’s emergency operations center.
