In Plympton, the town received its first reimbursement check from the federal CARES act.
The Plymouth County Commissioners are in charge of a $90 million fund to help towns with unexpected expenses from the COVID-19 pandemic. In this first round of funding, the town received just over $6,000.
Fire Chief and Emergency Management Director Steve Silva says the money was used to purchase protective equipment.
“Not only for our firefighters and paramedics, but also for other town employees. Then, it proceeded in bringing in enough funding to start to open up the Town Hall. We’re one of the few Town Halls that opened early and safely,” said Silva. “We set up a lot of procedures and policies that are keeping people safe, and keeping the Town Hall functional at the same time.”
A socially-distant Town Meeting was conducted at the Dennett Elementary School across the two gyms. Plexiglass by check-in tables, temperature checks, and cleaning supplies were purchased for the meeting.
“Town Meeting was a challenge but we rose to that occasion, elections, the Library is opening up almost fully and now we’re preparing for the schools. But each facet that we’re opening up is a new challenge because it’s never been done before,” said Silva. “We’re writing the rules as we go, with the input from CDC, FDA, the folks at DPH. Without these monies, there is absolutely no way we could have come as we’ve come in keeping people as safe as we have.”
The decision for the Commissioners to distribute the funds was initially met with skepticism, including from state Inspector General Glenn Cunha who said in a letter;
“Plymouth County, as a governmental entity, does not have the capacity or expertise to distribute the $90 million in federal funds that it received efficiently and effectively.”
Boston and Plymouth County chose to distribute the grants, while other counties returned the funds.
Commissioner Greg Hanley defended that decision.
“Quite frankly, if you think about the effort that the Governor is undertaking, and how enormous that task is – we’re just doing our part to support the Commonwealth. We have 27 towns in our jurisdiction. We know each one of them individually. It’s not like they go into a case file and someone’s asking ‘where is the Town of Plymouth?’ We know our member communities, we work well with them,” said Hanley.
“I think we’ve proven that the monies that we’ve provided are being expenses that are submitted. The turnaround time is less than two weeks. If you think about that, when it comes to government. That’s efficiency at it’s best.”
He says they’ve received the guidance from the state Secretary of Administration and Finance and the Inspector General on how to conduct post-audit oversight to track where the funds go.
On Monday, state and Plympton officials met at the Town House for the check presentation. Commissioner Hanley was joined by Commissioner Sandra Wright and Plymouth County Treasurer Tom O’Brien.
Jim Cantwell, the State Director for U.S. Senator Ed Markey’s office, joined the presentation.
“Senator Markey was one of the people who fought at the beginning to make sure that through the CARES Act that we could rush funds out to our cities and towns to help with the police, help with fire, help with education, just to be able to make sure that we’re going to be able to keep people employed,” said Cantwell. “This first round is to help some of the emergency needs. Right now, Senator Markey is fighting in DC to make sure that we have a larger source of federal funds to make sure that we keep all of these important services.”
The Commissioners delivered checks to Rockland, Hull, Bridgewater, Lakeville, Mattapoisett, Pembroke, and Duxbury this week.
Plymouth County Treasurer Tom O’Brien presents a CARES check to Plympton Selectman Mark Russo. From left: Commissioner Sandra Wright, Senator Michael Brady, State Rep. Kathy LaNatra, O’Brien, Russo, Town Administrator Elizabeth Dennehy, Commissioner Greg Hanley, Jim Cantwell, State Director for U.S. Senator Ed Markey, Fire Chief Steve Silva, and Fire Captain John Sjostedt. Photo credit: Lenny Rowe.
