The COVID relief bill has about $1B for Miami-Dade. How much help will your city get?
Local governments across Miami-Dade County stand to receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the COVID-19 relief bill nearing passage in Washington, legislation that provides far more money for cities than the CARES Act did last spring.
A Congressional summary from late February estimates Miami-Dade County and its 34 cities would receive about $1 billion from the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill expected to win final passage this week and be signed into law by President Biden.
Miami-Dade’s county government would get about half of the money, at roughly $530 million. That’s more than what the county received after the CARES Act passed in March 2020 under then-President Donald Trump. The $474 million that went to County Hall a year ago was the only government aid distributed to Miami-Dade, and from that money county commissioners approved about $108 million in city grants.
Cities of all sizes now have their own pipeline for federal relief dollars in the stimulus bill, which is expected to go to a final vote on Tuesday or Wednesday in the House of Representatives.
The Feb. 25 analysis from the House Oversight Committee includes payout estimates for every city in the United States, including all 34 municipalities in Miami-Dade. Combined, those 34 cities would receive an additional $510 million on top of the county allotment, bringing the estimated total in Miami-Dade to $1.04 billion.
“If that’s the case, fantastic,” said Carlos Hernández, mayor of Hialeah, the county’s second-largest city by population. Hialeah should receive about $70 million under the bill. That’s equal to about 20% of the city’s $335 million yearly budget. “Hopefully now...we can help a lot of people and businesses.”
Local governments have used COVID stimulus dollars for housing relief, grocery-card giveaways, business grants and other aid programs — as well as to cover payroll expenses and purchases tied to the coronavirus pandemic.
Eryn Hurley, associate legislative director at the National Association of Counties, said the new legislation, like CARES, lets local governments provide grants to compensate for economic losses from COVID. Unlike the CARES rules, she said, the new bill also allows governments to use the money to replace tax dollars lost during the pandemic.
“They provided a lot of flexibility,” she said, noting the bill also gives governments until the end of 2024 to spend the federal dollars. “It will really help counties get back on track and address the costs of COVID.”
The legislation doesn’t name individual cities and counties in the sections outlining how to allocate the $132 billion in aid for local governments across the country.
Instead, oversight committee staffers used formulas in the bill to calculate what each local government could get, based on population figures and other criteria tied to existing rules for federal community grants.
The bill lets larger cities receive money directly from Washington, while the federal government would direct each state to distribute dollars to municipalities with fewer than 50,000 people.
Final spending rules and allocation amounts to cities won’t be available until after the bill becomes law. The oversight committee emphasizes its figures represent “rough” calculations for smaller cities, so final amounts may not match the estimates. Federal rules also cap payouts at 75% of a city’s yearly budget.
According to the oversight committee’s preliminary estimates, this is how much Miami-Dade cities would receive through the federal COVID-19 legislation:
- Miami: $139 million
- Hialeah: $71 million
- Between $20 million and $30 million: Coral Gables, Doral, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, and Homestead
- Between $10 million and $20 million: Aventura, Cutler Bay, Miami Lakes, North Miami, North Miami Beach, and Palmetto Bay
- Between $5 million and $10 million: Hialeah Gardens, Key Biscayne, Miami Springs, Opa-locka, Pinecrest, South Miami, Sweetwater, and Sunny Isles Beach
- Between $1 million and $5 million: Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands, Biscayne Park, El Portal, Florida City, Miami Shores, North Bay Village, Surfside, Virginia Gardens, West Miami
- Less than $1 million: Golden Beach, Indian Creek and Medley
Jimmy Morales, a former Miami Beach city manager who now serves as the county’s chief operating officer, said governments will likely take advantage of the rule letting them apply federal dollars to revenue losses tied to COVID.
“I suspect for a lot of communities, this is going to fill budget holes,” he said. “That’s a lot of money for those cities.”
The city of Miami, the county’s most populous, narrowly dodged about $28 million in police, fire rescue and other municipal service cuts during its most recent budget cycle. Analysts predict 2021 could squeeze city coffers -- but the federal windfall could close gaps and preserve public employees’ jobs.
“I think they should take a tremendous amount of comfort, in terms of the city meeting our obligations to them,” said Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, adding that the city would likely use some of the dollars to continue direct rent, mortgage and business relief efforts.
In February, Suarez attended a White House summit of U.S. mayors and governors to advocate for direct aid for local governments. Miami and county leaders squabbled over the distribution of CARES Act dollars last year, the kind of political fight Suarez said he’s happy to avoid repeating now that Washington is poised to send Miami more than $100 million.
“It de-politicizes the process,” the mayor said. “It doesn’t allow the county to politicize the distribution of funds, and the city of Miami can get what it deserves.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2021 at 7:00 AM.
