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SALT LAKE CITY — It's possible that a second coronavirus relief bill could grant Utah more time to spend its money from the original one, officials said in a presentation to Utah lawmakers Wednesday, but they can't assume anything until a deal is done.
As KSL.com has reported, the state has to spend millions in relief funding by the end of the year or risk losing it. But Duncan Evans, budget manager at the Governor's Office of Management and Budget, told the Legislature's Executive Appropriations Committee that his office is in a "holding pattern" to see if it needs to place massive orders for more coronavirus tests now or can wait to do so.
"One of the items that (Congress is) talking about is providing additional relief," Evans said, "and there's also a proposal to give us a whole 'nother year, potentially, to use the CARES Act money that we've been allocated. So we have orders ready to go, and we're watching this week. The governor's office has been in contact with our congressional delegation, and congressional leadership, and we're watching it very closely.
"So, we have orders ready to go if we need to, if the deadline sticks on the 30th. But if it works out that the date is extended, we don't want to place those orders yet if we don't have to. So we're just waiting on that, to see how that shakes out in the end."
He said some other line items that apparently haven't been filled yet are actually just waiting for invoices from the companies performing the service.
Jonathan Ball, director of the office of the Legislative Fiscal Analyst, clarified that not all the relief bill money needs to be spent by the end of the year, per Treasury Department guidelines. "We actually have 90 days after Dec. 30 to make these payments," Ball said, "so it's not like you have to get all the money out the door. As long as it's obligated, and we're getting some benefit from the expenditure before the 30th of December, we can still pay people after the fact.
"There have been some reporters and opinion columnists who felt like we really need to find uses for this money," Ball said. "I will just tell you: We are not short of uses for this money."
Ball said the allocations are being examined and reexamined all the time. He mentioned a $3 million grant program for the live events industry that the Governor's Office for Economic Development announced last week. Grant applications opened on Tuesday.
"That money went out the door in two hours," Ball said.
Reports suggested Wednesday that lawmakers may finally be nearing an agreement on a second relief bill. But after months of haggling, Utah lawmakers said they aren't taking anything for granted.
"We have not assumed anything is coming from Washington in the recommendations we're making right now," Ball said during the meeting. Lawmakers used the meeting to approve a framework for budget decisions during the 2021 legislative general session.
"We've seen how many times this stimulus thing has burned down," he went on. "Every time it gets close to passing, something falls apart. And we don't know what it's going to look like, exactly, yet."
