The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly had some housekeeping measures to take care of related to the borough’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The assembly met for an emergency meeting at 2 p.m. April 3.
All four measures on the agenda passed unanimously. The assembly extended the payment deadline for special assessment districts from March 31 to June 30. Interest on late payments won’t start to accrue until July 1.
South Peninsula Hospital will be allowed to keep additional cash on hand in case the hospital has increased costs in responding to COVID-19 patients. Usually, the hospital would transfer any additional money beyond 90 days worth of operating expenses into the hospital’s plant replacement fund at the end of the quarter, which was March 31. That’ll be put off until the end of the next quarter.
The assembly also gave SPH a green light to apply for a paycheck protection loan, which is part of the federal coronavirus relief act passed by Congress last week. Since elective medical procedures and noncritical services are not being allowed for the time being, SPH estimates an $11.4 million operating loss from March through June. The hospital will apply for $5.6 million to cover payroll and other operating expenses.
Finally, the assembly approved a transfer of funds to the Office of Emergency Management to cover additional operating costs, including overtime for staff and bringing on contract workers.
Dan Nelson, incident commander of OEM, briefed the assembly on the office’s efforts thus far in responding to the pandemic. The borough has four roles in emergencies. One is to plan for contingencies. This emergency is unlike any the borough has seen.
“There is not really a playbook for this type of thing,” Nelson said. “We have not really planned, and most emergency agencies have not, where they have something of this level taking place all at the same time. So we’ve seen supply chain issues, and response issues, lack of availability of resources, many of those types of things.”
The borough has the advantage of seeing how other locations have responded first. But the borough does not have health powers, so it relies on the state to issue mandates to help slow the spread of the disease. Nelson says he wishes there was better adherence to those mandates locally.
“We’re still encouraging people to continue to stay inside. We know that we don’t have everybody that’s taking this as seriously as we would like them to,” he said. “And that is something that could potentially have consequences down the road as the virus may continue to spread.”
He warned that the worst is yet to come.
“It’s very important for everybody to understand, we have not really started the curve on the Kenai Peninsula or in Alaska,” Nelson. “As we see that come up, it can either be a steep curve with a high peak or we can flatten it out. That is one of the most terrifying things in this, and one of the biggest contingencies that we’re trying to do. We use the example, if you’ve got a broken arm, you go into the hospital, you get x-rays, you get surgery, you get it taken care of in the emergency room, that works fine. If 15 or 20 people have a broken arm at once, the system can’t handle it.”
OEM also coordinates between cities, the state and the federal level in terms of getting supplies and equipment. The borough is trying to build up resources, form partnerships and prepare for when a surge of COVID-19 cases does hit.
“We’re doing our best to try and get that capacity as high as we can, try to determine what our needs are and try to get those resources here before we start seeing an influx of patients,” Nelson said.
OEM’s most public role is providing information. To that end, OEM maintains a blog, kpboem.com and social media accounts. And OEM gives live updates at 7 p.m. daily on its KPB Alerts Facebook page where they share current information and answer questions from the public.
“I don’t think you need me to tell you there’s a lot of misinformation, rumors out there right now. We’re trying to make sure people have the facts,” Nelson.
Nelson says he doesn’t know any better than anyone else how long this phase of emergency response will last.
“We are planning for the long term, at least for the next month is not more to be in this phase of the process, what we call the response phase,” he said.
The assembly thanked OEM personnel, hospitals and emergency responders and gaveled out in about an hour.
