Johnson administration finally moves to spend $374 million in leftover federal COVID relief funds

Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration this week says it will finally get to dedicating and spending the remaining $374 million of the $1.9 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funding the city received in 2021.

The released cash can cover a range of vital services including homeless prevention, mental health and community safety. City officials say they will even restart the guaranteed income pilot program that paid 5,000 low income Chicagoans $500 a month.

This is all OK to us. Besides, the city has to allocate the funding by the end of 2024 and spend it by the close of 2026, or else the federal government will snatch it back.

A question remains, though: What's the plan for funding these initiatives once the pandemic money runs out?

The city didn't say. And while it's good to know the cash will be spent, it would have been even better if the city could have also told us how it intends to pay for the programs — either some or all of them — once the federal gravy train ends.

And while we've supported the guaranteed income program from the start, we'd like to see some robust analysis — not just anecdotes — from the city, telling us who was helped.

Such information could possibly help tamp down criticism that the program is nothing more than some socialist giveaway.

The data also might be helpful in determining how, and if, the initiative continues.

And if it does continue, the city has to be handling things far more timely and efficiently.

"We certainly should have spent the bulk of this money by now, when the pandemic was raging," Ald. Matt Martin (47th) told WTTW last February. "We have to take a hard look at why we let millions of dollars sit on the shelf while people were suffering.”

Johnson administration officials said allocating and handing out the $374 million funds was delayed by red tape in the city's contracting process, occasions when there were a lack of vendors available to launch a program and a change in federal guidelines.

Fair enough. But it's now the city's job to iron out these problems and better provide those services.

For now, at least the federal money on hand will be getting out of the door.

Here's hoping the funds are treated as a down payment on the kind of vital and sustainable community change the city is willing to see and fund long after the pandemic money is spent.

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