New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy says the U.S Treasury Department has given states more flexibility in the use of funds from the federal CARES Act.
The new guidance frees up $2.4 billion of the money, with about $1 billion of it going to counties. Murphy announced Monday that $467 million will make the next school aid payment.
The governor said the money will also be used for first responders and small businesses.
Murphy cautioned the money was still not enough for the state to meet the fiscal needs created during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We need Congress to step up, in a big way, to provide direct relief to the states,” Murphy said. “It doesn’t matter if your state is large or small, urban or rural, or led by a Democrat or a Republican. This need is universal. Again, I’m calling on Congress to pass a package of direct state relief, so we can ensure that once we restart our economy, and are on the road to recovery, we can stay on that road.”
New Jersey remains under an indefinite ‘stay-at-home’ order. Murphy has said repeatedly that “data drives decisions” and has not given a date as to when the economy will reopen.
The state is continuing to see a decline in COVID-19 patients in critical care and on ventilators, while the number of hospitalizations reported are up slightly. The number of new cases reported Tuesday was 2,494, bringing the total number of cases to date to 130,593. The number of deaths relating to the virus increased by 344 for a total of 8,244. Some of the numbers may be lower due to an outage with the state’s reporting system over the weekend.
Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli and Attorney General Gurbir Grewal addressed the situation in nursing homes and long-term care facilities.
Grewal began an investigation of the state’s long-term care facilities on April 16 after “disturbing” reports of bodies in makeshift morgues and staff members without personal protective equipment.
“To be clear, at this particular time, we are not alleging any misconduct by any particular facility or any entity, or any individual,” Grewal said. “We’ll simply follow the facts and the law wherever they lead us.”
Grewal said he understands that for many of the facilities, the coronavirus pandemic was the equivalent of a 500-year flood.
“But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t examine how folks responded when those floodwaters started rising,” Grewal said. “And it also doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t examine how they operated before that flood. If they cut corners. If they, or anyone for that matter, ignored red flags or warnings. If they lied to regulators or others, if they put profits over patients.”
A reporting portal is on the state’s COVID-19 webpage for residents to report any evidence of misconduct, Grewal said.
