Monday morning, Kevin Overmyer, President of the Marshall County Commissioners and Clyde Avery, County EMA Director appeared before the County Council to discuss recent changes in the CARES Act funding. These two along with County Council President Judy Stone and Councilwoman Penny Lukenbill conferenced with David Clark of the Indiana Finance Authority to clarify the changes.
Overmyer said the state wants to get the funds out faster to the local governments so they aren’t going to approve any additional projects. He said they want us to submit payroll from March 1st thru the current payroll and until the end of the year if necessary to reach out total amount of $1.5 million.
The idea is to cover the payroll and insurance benefits of county employees and then use those budgeted line items to fund the COVID-19 projects for the county.
It was questioned about the two major projects that were already approved through the state; the construction of a county morgue and the mobile medical unit for the County Health Department. Overmyer said he believed these two projects were still on track for Marshall County. The commissioner noted that the rapid testing equipment for COVID-19 would be allowed by the test cartridges for the equipment wouldn’t be permitted so they don’t want to get the machines.
With the news on the CARES Act reimbursement, the additional appropriation requests before the council from the Clerk’s Office, Superior Court I, II, and II and Circuit Courts were denied. Most of their requests pertained to laptops and wifi pucks for at home work.
Commissioner Overmyer said, “This has been very frustrating.”
