The Soldotna City Council voted to increase estimated revenues and appropriations in the COVID-19 Relief Special Revenue Fund for grant funds provided by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. The city was awarded $195,195.86 of COVID-19 community funding through the DHSS to implement community-driven strategies that support COVID-19 related activities. Eligible activities include improving efforts to increase access to COVID-19 testing in the community, building capacity to increase access to the COVID-19 vaccine in the community and implementing the vaccine and testing strategies that decrease health inequities.
City Manager Stephanie Queen, “At your April 14th meeting, the council approved Resolution 2021-017 which authorizes the city to accept these grant funds from the state of Alaska and enter into the subrecipient agreement that Mr. Ruffridge mentioned where Soldotna Professional Pharmacy would use the funds to stand up a walk-in vaccination clinic. This is the companion ordinance that would appropriate those funds into the city’s accounts. Unlike CARES Act grants, this won’t be all provided to the city up front, but will be a reimbursable grant and as funds are expended on the eligible expenses, we will be seeking reimbursement from the state up to the maximum amount of $195,195.”
Queen tells the City Council that the intent is to get more people vaccinated, “I will say that part of these meetings is to roll out a statewide campaign really to access folks in our area who are open and interested in getting vaccinated but just haven’t done it yet. You’ll be hearing a lot more from us through the month of May about that strategy to try and engage more folks in our area. I think there’s going to be a campaign to try to get 11,000 more borough residents vaccinated during May and we’re coordinating with folks around the peninsula to try and do that.”
Ordinance 2021-009 passed with five votes to none with one abstention.
