{"id":33235,"date":"2020-09-03T08:33:08","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T13:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=33235"},"modified":"2021-06-11T14:55:33","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T19:55:33","slug":"tempers-flare-after-oklahoma-county-sends-cares-money-to-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2020\/09\/03\/tempers-flare-after-oklahoma-county-sends-cares-money-to-jail\/","title":{"rendered":"Tempers flare after Oklahoma County sends CARES money to jail"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_33237\"  class=\"wp-caption module image aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-33237\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-1920x956.jpg\" alt=\"Oklahoma County commissioners conduct their August 19 meeting inside their board room.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"956\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-1920x956.jpg 1920w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-672x335.jpg 672w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-768x382.jpg 768w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-150x75.jpg 150w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-300x149.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2020\/09\/BOCC-08.19-620x309.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Image courtesy of Oklahoma County \/ Oklahoma County<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oklahoma County Board of County Commissioners has been heavily criticized for transferring millions in CARES Act funding to the Oklahoma County Jail.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"width: 100%; height: 170px; margin-bottom: 20px; border-radius: 10px; overflow:hidden;\"><iframe style=\"width: 100%; height: 170px;\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https:\/\/player.captivate.fm\/episode\/d2391533-854b-4850-b937-88c44640cb26\"><\/iframe><\/div><p>A woman raising her three grandchildren in Bethany was facing eviction after she lost her job to the COVID-19 pandemic. She called Dan Straughan for help but he wasn\u2019t sure what he could do. Straughan is executive director of the Homeless Alliance in Oklahoma City.<\/p><p>\u201cShe\u2019s a perfect example of you ought to be able to use CARES money to prevent her and those three children from becoming homeless,\u201d Straughan said.<\/p><p>The Homeless Alliance received about $632,000 in federal coronavirus relief funding, or CARES Act money, to help Oklahoma City residents avoid eviction and find new homes.<\/p><p>Thousands of Oklahomans have asked government entities and nonprofits like the Homeless Alliance for help with expenses like rent and utilities.<\/p><p>But the federal government has attached very strict rules to CARES money. One of Straughan\u2019s rules is he can only spend money on residents of Oklahoma City. Bethany is a separate city in Oklahoma County.<\/p>\n<h3>CARES Act restrictions<\/h3><p>\u201cI can\u2019t use the city money and I can\u2019t use the state money,\u201d Straughan said. \u201cI can only use county money for that.\u201d<\/p><p>Straughan hoped the county government would use some of the $47 million CARES Act grant it received from the federal government to help people who he can\u2019t. But, the state\u2019s most populous county is planning to spend the bulk of that relief package on its problematic jail.<\/p><p>The decision has <a href=\"https:\/\/oklahoman.com\/article\/5670356\/oklahoma-countys-cares-act-funding-decision-could-have-lasting-ramifications\">angered county residents and raised questions<\/a>\u00a0about how pandemic relief money should be spent.<\/p><p>Straughan says without county CARES dollars there will be few options to help Oklahoma City\u2019s neighbors who&#8217;ve been hit hard by the pandemic avoid losing their homes.<\/p><p>He says the county money could help people in \u201cHarrah and Jones, Bethany and Warr Acres, and Midwest City and Del City.\u201d<\/p><p>The county is spending $1.5 million on rental and mortgage assistance. But the amount pales in the face of the sheer number of people who could lose their homes.<\/p><p>According to the organization Open Justice Oklahoma, since the beginning of the pandemic more than <a href=\"https:\/\/openjustice.okpolicy.org\/blog\/oklahoma-court-tracker\/\">2,600 county residents<\/a>\u00a0have been threatened with eviction. The Oklahoma County Home Finance Authority is in charge of the county rental assistance money. The agency proposed spending a maximum of $8,000 on each approved applicant.<\/p><p>The agency will use the money to help people still in their homes pay bills. The program isn\u2019t designed to assist people who need help getting inside a new home. More than 860 people in Oklahoma County have been evicted since the pandemic began.<\/p>\n<h3>CARES money for the jail<\/h3><p>Instead of putting more money into social safety nets, the county\u2019s board of commissioners decided to transfer about $40 million in CARES funds to help its troubled jail. The jail has been struggling with severe defects for years and is now in the middle of a dangerous COVID outbreak.<\/p><p>The move infuriated a number of county residents. Many have disrupted public meetings and demanded county leaders use the money to help residents struggling to make ends meet instead.<\/p><p>Oklahoma County Commissioner Carrie Blumert opposed the fund transfers. She says \u201cvoting on those items so quickly was a disservice to the taxpayers.&#8221;<\/p><p>First, Blumert voted against the board\u2019s decision to send $6 million in CARES funds to the jail for staff pay, bonuses, and improvements to the building\u2019s plumbing and ventilation. Then she vehemently opposed County Commissioner Kevin Calvey\u2019s proposal to transfer another roughly $34 million.<\/p><p>But she was outnumbered both times. Calvey and County Commissioner Brian Maughan approved the transfers. Blumert says she understands why some county residents are angry about the decision and protested at the meetings.<\/p><p>\u201cThe way the vote was handled was disrespectful not only to me as a fellow commissioner but to the taxpayers and to our voters,\u201d Blumert said.<\/p>\n<h3>A fast vote<\/h3><p>Blumert says the board of county commissioners didn\u2019t give the public enough opportunity to ask questions or voice opinions on the more than $34 million transfer. Blumert also claims Calvey rushed the vote to prevent her from opposing it.<\/p><p>The day of the vote Blumert was about a minute late to the meeting. One of her staff members took her place temporarily when Commissioner Calvey started the meeting without her.<\/p><p>\u201cWe\u2019ve waited on Commissioner Calvey before, we\u2019ve waited on Commissioner Maughan, we\u2019ve waited on me to walk in one or two minutes late,\u201d Blumert said. \u201cIt\u2019s never been an issue.\u201d<\/p><p>It took about a minute after the meeting began for the board to approve the transfer, despite one of its members being absent and her designated representative not casting a vote.<\/p><p>In a video of the meeting, Blumert\u2019s representative can be heard saying he hasn\u2019t voted and he has questions about the transfer. His protests were ignored.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U8eGqBA1610\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>How will the money be spent?<\/h3><p>Blumert doesn\u2019t believe so much CARES money should be spent on the jail. She and the county\u2019s treasurer have both questioned whether the county\u2019s jail trust can legally spend all the CARES money they\u2019ve been given. She says she still hasn\u2019t seen a detailed spending plan.<\/p><p>\u201cIt is our job as elected officials to ask as many questions as possible, have all the right documentation in place and to know that we are making solid decisions on behalf of our constituents,\u201d Blumert said.<\/p><p>In it\u2019s August 31 meeting, the trust voted to accept the $34 million transferred by the board of commissioners. Trustee Frances Ekwerekwu wanted to delay the vote because the nine-member panel still hadn\u2019t been given a list of suggested expenses the CARES money could be used to cover.<\/p><p>She said she\u2019d expected to have at least a rough itemized list of what the money might be spent on before the group accepted it.<\/p><p>The jail trust has already accepted the county commissioners\u2019 suggestions on how to spend the $6 million initially received. The county commissioners\u2019 also suggested they use some of the larger allocation to improve the jail\u2019s medical facilities and otherwise make the building more COVID-resistant.<\/p><p>Commissioner Calvey has defended the larger transfer as a responsible decision. He has argued that the county commissioners need to take care of <a href=\"https:\/\/nondoc.com\/2020\/08\/13\/oklahoma-county-budget-meeting-gets-heated\/\">county operations before they consider trying to help others<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>Other options<\/h3><p>\u201cAs far as the other things that were proposed for this money,\u201d Calvey said after a recent commissioners\u2019 meeting, \u201cother government entities are already doing those things, already doing it with federal CARES Act funds and they have a lot more than we do.\u201d<\/p><p>Oklahoma City is spending more than $21 million in CARES funds to help its residents with housing, utilities and legal services. Those funds aren\u2019t available to residents outside the city\u2019s limits.<\/p><p>The state set aside $10 million in CARES money to help Oklahomans pay housing and utility costs. But that money is going to eligible applicants across all of Oklahoma.<\/p><p>The state could distribute more relief money to groups helping citizens or send it directly to Oklahoma County\u2019s smaller cities, but Blumert says there are no guarantees. That&#8217;s why she pushed for more direct assistance from the county to nonprofits and businesses.<\/p><p>Blumert\u00a0says nonprofits especially can be used to direct money and resources toward people who need help staying afloat during the pandemic.<\/p><p>\u201cIf we didn\u2019t have our nonprofit community, a lot of people would lose their homes or lose their jobs or not have child care \u2026,\u201d Blumert said.<\/p><p>Dan Straughan is disappointed the county won\u2019t be giving more money to help prevent evictions and house the homeless. The pandemic is ongoing and he expects there will be many more evictions this winter.<\/p><p>Sheltering people will also be more difficult. The highly contagious nature of the novel coronavirus will prevent the Homeless Alliance and other groups from relying solely on the limited shelter space they already house people in.<\/p><p>\u201cReally the only answer to that is to acquire \u2026 or create a large shelter to take care of people in the winter,\u201d Straughan said.<\/p><p>That shelter would be very expensive and Straughan believes government money is the most realistic way to pay for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A nonprofit leader hoped Oklahoma County would use some of its $47 million CARES Act grant to help people facing eviction. But the state\u2019s most populous county is planning to spend the bulk of that relief package on its problematic jail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":33237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1296,1295,1061,1238,1297,1060,1294,1142,1055],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33235"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34120,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33235\/revisions\/34120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}