Elrich Responds to His Council Critics: ‘The Money Will Be Spent’

One day after councilmembers blasted County Executive Marc Elrich for not allocating and distributing much of the funds designed to help residents and businesses during the global pandemic, Elrich responded, “I don’t have any question we are going to spend the money. It’s going to get spent, but getting it right, you know, is really important to us.”

He added, “I used to be a legislator. It’s easy to say, ‘I want you to do something. I want you to go spend money.’ It’s another thing to create programs.”

Montgomery County received $183,336,953 from the federal CARES Act and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That money must be spent by the end of this December. But when County Chief Administrative Officer Richard Madaleno began explaining how little of the funds has been allocated to date, councilmembers became irate.

“The buck stops with him,” Council Vice President Tom Hucker said during a Oct. 13 council meeting. “This lies firmly in the County Executive’s lap,” said Councilmember Craig Rice.

MyMCMedia spoke to Elrich on Wednesday.

Since the global pandemic began, the council has approved 31 special appropriations to assist residents and businesses impacted by COVID-19.

According to a memo from Marlene Michaelson, council executive director, only $600,000 out of $20 million has been distributed for renters facing eviction and about half of the $10 million for food security has been distributed.

In several sections of the memo, it merely states the status of a contract as either being worked on or recently finalized.

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‘The Buck Stops With Him’: Council Blasts Elrich for Undistributed Federal COVID-19 Funds

About Suzanne Pollak

Suzanne is a freelance reporter with Montgomery Community Media. She has over 35 years professional experience writing for newspapers, magazines, non-profit newsletters and the web.

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