Hi there, everyone! I can’t believe we’ve reached week *eleven* of this newsletter. Thanks for being here with me as we all stay engaged with Floyd County’s local government.
I’ve been struggling to stay motivated these first couple weeks after the holiday (anyone else?), but a big news day perks me right back up again. Floyd’s county government discussed lots of high-interest items at its Tuesday morning meeting, including how to spend remaining CARES Act funding; bureaucratic backlog at DSS; launching vaccination clinics in Floyd and its stance on qualified immunity.
Not much else to say—as always, my inbox is open for feedback and news tips!
-Ashley
Supervisors plan for vaccines to arrive
Floyd Town Council has asked the county Board of Supervisors for $11,500. The request, dated Jan. 6, was reviewed as part of a larger conversation about how to spend (or not spend) remaining CARES Act funding during the Board of Supervisors meeting on Jan. 12. As previously reported, the county spent the bulk of its remaining funding—about $200,000—to provide fresh produce, meat and other food to local food banks before Christmas. This mad-dash effort was necessitated by the ticking clock on CARES Act money, which originally had an expiration date of Dec. 30. However, Congress recently extended that deadline to Dec. 31, 2021.
The Town Council contributed nearly half of its allotted funding to the Public Service Authority’s project to replace its water meters. This move was partially motivated by the worthiness of the project, which will allow PSA employees to read meters remotely and will help minimize COVID-19 exposure points. But the Council felt the pressure of the impending deadline to spend the money, too, Acting County Administrator Cindy Ryan explained. “The Town, if they had known it would have been extended a year, would not have put so much money into the PSA project, they would have held some back for ongoing monthly expenses,” Ryan said. “But with the concern that it was going to end, they wanted to spend their total down.”
Now, the town needs supplemental money to continue services supported by the original CARES Act money, its request to the Board said. “Our request for additional funding would cover all expenses related to cleaning the restrooms and continuing our ability to allow telework and virtual meeting capabilities in 2021,” the letter said. The consensus among the Supervisors was that they didn’t want to reject the request, but they wanted to be mindful of continuing expenses for the county as well.
While the possibility of additional federal dollars has been floated by the Biden administration, nothing is guaranteed. The county has just over $60,000 left, and Supervisors predicted significant upcoming expenses for vaccination programs. “Once vaccines are more readily available and we’re trying to figure out how that works...there’s going to be a lot of expenses associated with that,” Locust Grove District Supervisor Lauren Yoder said. Transporting folks in the rural county to vaccination clinics and providing the vaccine to everyone who wants it “seems like the most important thing we’re going to work on this year,” he added, and said the county should “hold on to (the funding) as much as we can until we see what’s going to happen.”
The Board agreed and directed Ryan to ask the Town for a breakdown of its expenses before the next meeting. They will reconsider the request at the Jan. 26 Board of Supervisors meeting.
Speaking of vaccination, though, rollout logistics are in the works in Floyd County. Ryan told the Board that the county is looking into Jessie Peterman Memorial Library as a potential clinic location. The library volunteered its space, she said. Similar clinics have been set up in neighboring localities, such as Blue Ridge Church in Christiansburg. According to Ryan, the next step is for local fire marshall Curtis Whitt to visit the library and see if it fits the needs for a vaccination site. Then, the Virginia Department of Health will coordinate delivery of vaccine doses to the clinic, giving Floyd County about a week’s notice to prepare.
As for local pharmacies, Ryan said neither CVS or the Pharm House in Floyd have vaccine doses right now.
Ryan said the county is also considering New River Valley Community Services’ Floyd office as a COVID-19 testing site. The cost to implement this additional testing would be virtually nothing for the county. VDH would supply self-testing kits and an NRVCS staff member would coach people through had to administer the test. Testing continues to be important, despite the ongoing distribution of two vaccines. Floyd County, along with the rest of the country, is still coping with spiking infection rates.
To the point, Ryan asked the Supervisors on Tuesday if they would extend sick leave benefits for county employees who are asked to quarantine, are caring for someone else sick with coronavirus, or are experiencing symptoms of Covid themselves. Congress passed the Families First COVID Response Act, which required certain employers to provide two weeks of emergency paid leave for these pandemic-related circumstances. But the federal law expired at the end of 2020. The Board elected to continue the sick leave policy despite the lack of a mandate to do so.
“Employees were more likely to follow the quarantine if they were going to get paid than if not - it does provide an incentive to quarantine,” Ryan said, which keeps other employees safe.
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, the Board received an update from Department of Social Services Director Chad Alls. According to Alls, the department is facing severe bureaucratic backlog as a result of statewide guidance to halt or postpone processing paperwork for social safety net programs.
The biggest change is with Medicaid, as Alls’ colleague Hope Estes explained. “Basically the state came out and said, ‘You are not to close any cases,’” Estes said. “No matter if they got a job making $100,000 and had insurance,” they were to stay enrolled in Medicaid for the time being. The only way a DSS employee could close a case, Estes said, is if a client directly requested it, passed away or moved permanently out-of-state.
“At this point in time, we have 379 late renewals...once COVID-19 ends, we’ll have to reevaluate those cases,” Estes said. In addition, the state government mandated that SNAP applications that were due for renewal in May, June and July of 2020 were “pushed out” for six months, so at the end of 2020, DSS staff were processing at least twice as much paperwork as normal. Estes said applications to SNAP “increased a lot” between October and December 2020, too, because the $600 federal unemployment supplement expired on July 31 and by the fall, folks were really struggling to make ends meet.
Estes said the state has allocated money to pay benefit programs specialists overtime once the backlog comes to a head. However, the money requires a 15.5% local match, something the Floyd Board of Supervisors will have to remember come budget time.
Alls announced that the Floyd DSS recently joined a regional agreement with Montgomery and Giles County, wherein Montgomery County will be managing all the foster homes for the group. This partnership will provide about 50 regional homes, compared with Floyd’s existing four, and present cost savings to the county, Alls said.
Little River District Supervisor Linda DeVito Kuchenbuch asked Alls if Social Services has seen an uptick in mental health needs since the pandemic descended on the county. “The concern has been and continues to be, with the kids not going to school…the things we might be missing,” Alls replied. “The impression seems to be that we haven’t yet seen the after-effects of COVID-19.”
Tuesday’s meeting preceded the kickoff of the General Assembly’s 2021 legislative session today. At the meeting, Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution “in opposition to any legislative effort to repeal or revise the judicial doctrine of qualified immunity." Ryan said the City of Galax passed the same resolution and shared it with Floyd County officials. Floyd County Sheriff Brian Craig then reviewed and approved the language.
Craig has spoken out before about the potential pitfalls of eliminating qualified immunity. Essentially, the judicial principle grants government officials immunity from civil lawsuits, unless the official violated rights that have been clearly established. Supporters of qualified immunity, including Craig and apparently, the entire Board of Supervisors, argue that it protects localities from high insurance costs and protects individuals from frivolous lawsuits.
The connotation of the resolution suggests that only bad actors bring lawsuits, which are often frivolous or vengeful, against law enforcement officers. The resolution says repealing qualified immunity would “manifestly harm law enforcement by putting law enforcement officers at constant risk of unjustified lawsuits for almost every action they take,” but this isn’t true. Qualified immunity protects public officials from facing civil suits under virtually all circumstances, even when they do violate people’s civil rights. A repeal of the principle would not mean those officials could be sued for anything—civil suits still have to establish standing and meet burdens of proof for conviction.
Proponents of repeal argue that public officials, including LEOs, are already granted a degree of discretion in their jobs. Most LEOs, for instance, are sued under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. That means the court already has flexibility to determine whether an officer’s actions were “reasonable” or not—sometimes, the court sides with the police officer, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Other actions taken at Tuesday’s meeting:
The Board elected to rejoin the NRV HOME Consortium for a three-year term.
Supervisors approved a motion to send two Transfer Station projects out to bid: a roof replacement with an estimated cost of $25,000 and new lights for the building at a cost of $5-6,000. The lights will last approximately nine years.
CDCC Project Manager Erica Sunshine visited with the Board to answer its questions about recent change order requests. Sunshine clarified that the change orders will be funded out of the project’s $389,000 contingency fund.
The Floyd County Board of Supervisors will next meet Jan. 26 at 7 p.m.