Municipalities allocated federal funds for COVID-19 response

MADISON — Every town, village, city and federally recognized tribe in the state of Wisconsin will receive some cash under what Gov. Tony Evers dubbed the “Routes to Recovery: Local Government Aid Grants” program, described as a $200 million effort aimed at helping local leaders address some of their most urgent and unique COVID-19 recovery needs.

Administered by the Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA), Routes to Recovery Grants are funded by $200 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act dollars.

“Our local government partners are on the frontlines of supporting their communities through the COVID-19 health crisis and into economic recovery,” Evers said Wednesday in a statement accompanying the announcement. “The Route to Recovery Grants will provide financial flexibility to communities because they know what they need and how to best address the unique recovery needs of their friends, families, and neighbors.”

Routes to Recovery Grants for Wisconsin counties, cities, villages and towns are designed to provide reimbursements for unbudgeted expenditures incurred this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the following categories:

• Emergency operations activities, including those related to public health, emergency services, and public safety response

• Purchases of personal protective equipment

• Cleaning/sanitizing supplies and services, including those related to elections administration

• Temporary isolation housing for infected or at-risk individuals

• Testing and contact tracing costs above those covered by existing State programs

• Family Medical Leave Act and sick leave for public health and safety employees to take COVID-19 precautions

• Meeting local match requirements for expenses submitted for reimbursement by FEMA, to the extent allowed by federal law

The Routes to Recovery Grants are in addition to the $1 billion in federal resources Evers previously announced that will fund a statewide response to COVID-19, including the distribution of testing supplies, PPE, contact tracing, community testing sites, and other valuable resources for communities across the state.

“So far, we’ve been able to invest $1 billion in resources to support communities throughout Wisconsin through our statewide COVID-19 response efforts,” said DOA Secretary Joel Brennan. “But, we know that communities are not ‘one size fits all.’ The Routes to Recovery Grants will provide local governments with an additional resource to address the challenges they are seeing on the ground.”

The determination of a local government’s Routes to Recovery Grant amount is a formula based on the jurisdiction’s population, as well as the priority of providing Wisconsin’s units of local government no less than $5,000, regardless of size of the population. In Oconto County, the allocations range from the minimum $5,000 for the towns of Bagley and Doty to $87,092 for the town of Little Suamico, which has become the county’s most populated community with 5,357 residents.

The allocations by municipality:

City of Gillett $21,915

Village of Lena $8,990

City of Oconto $75,126

City of Oconto Falls $45,879

Village of Pulaski $58,917

Village of Suring $8,373

Towns

Abrams $31,735

Bagley $5,000

Brazeau $21,119

Breed $11,884

Chase $52,870

Doty $5,000

Gillett $16,599

How $8,730

Lakewood $13,608

Lena $11,640

Little River $18,322

Little Suamico $87,092

Maple Valley $10,811

Morgan $16,404

Mountain $13,331

Oconto $22,257

Oconto Falls $20,842

Pensaukee $22,793

Riverview $11,819

Spruce $13,754

Stiles $24,923

Townsend $15,623

Underhill $14,892