CARES Act money in Piedmont could be used for buying a new road-grader with a snowplow, if city council members decide how to approve the plan.
City Manager Jason Orr reported to council members and mayor that the City of Piedmont received $481,463 in CARES Act reimbursement. Orr requested $380,000 for a second road-grader with the snowplow attachment, two replacement three-quarter ton trucks and a new brush hog for the public works department.
Mayor Kurt Mayabb asked the council to take another look on how the paper trail would look in case of an audit. The City of Piedmont has been subject to a recent state audit over pickup purchases.
Council members are expected to approve the use of the funds for the equipment at the next meeting.
Orr said his staff members have asked an accountant if the purchase is allowed, and they have been given the green light, he told council members in a Tuesday, March 2 special meeting.
“Cities across Oklahoma are spending this, but again it is not spending CARES Act money. It is spending money that is freed up by CARES Act reimbursements,” Orr said.
“The reimbursement we are spending on personnel costs, and all of the expenditures we’ve already turned in, that’s what we spent that money on, that’s the way you can look at it, it’s already bene spent e are no looking at $481,000 that was freed up. And so I agree with the Mayor that maybe we can reword it.
Mayor Kurt Mayabb said that CARES Act money is used “for budgets that are not there due to COVID-19” “By what’s on this agenda we are tying this money (public works equipment) to CARES Act money and when we are audited it will show that we bought equipment with CARES Act money. This needs to be worded differently,” Mayabb said.
The Piedmont City Council will meet again Monday, March 22.
