Guam is seeking federal reimbursement for the cost of hotel facilities used as quarantine sites during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Office of Civil Defense Administrator Charles Esteves said the hotel quarantine sites have been approved locally by the Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance Program representative, but must still go to the FEMA Consolidated Resource Center for final approval and obligation of funding.
Approval will apply to all quarantine sites, not just the initial hotels part of the project. Esteves said he expects feedback within a week or two.
The reimbursement will be at 75% of the cost, but the government plans to use COVID-19 relief funding to cover the remaining 25%. Esteves said the U.S. Treasury released information allowing the use of funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act to serve as the local match.
“But the decision on which projects will use CARES Act to cover the cost match is something we would need to work with the (Bureau of Budget and Management Research),” Esteves added with regard to other projects.
Procurement troubles
The hotel quarantine sites, or at least the initial facilities, drew much controversy over how they were procured.
The initial documents regarding the use of some hotels as quarantine and isolation facilities had the electronic signature of Linda Unpingco-DeNorcey, then-director of the Department of Public Health and Social Services, who said she didn’t recall giving permission for her signature to be used. The letters were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The governor’s legal office sought the director’s signature five times, according to the written statements from Haig Huynh and Sophia Diaz, legal counsels to the governor. Each request was approved, but only four were finalized. The fifth signature requested from Unpingco-DeNorcey – for the letters to hoteliers – was prepared but never delivered, according to the governor’s attorneys. Huynh is no longer at Adelup.
Additionally, the governor’s legal counsel facilitated the procurement without the General Services Agency, which oversees much of the government’s procurement. GSA Chief Procurement Officer Claudia Acfalle told senators during an oversight hearing she didn’t want to sign any documents because her agency was not involved in the effort to procure the documents. Despite the lack of contracts, the government paid the hotels.
Subsequent procurement for additional sites involved GSA.
$1.7M as of May
As of late May, payment to the initial facilities amounted to about $1.7 million. More recent numbers were not immediately available.
Other projects the Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense submitted to FEMA for reimbursement include medical and supply purchases for Guam Homeland Security and overtime costs for people working at the Emergency Operations Center.
Not fast enough
The responsibility to procure the quarantine sites lies with the director of Homeland Security, according to Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero.
“However, I felt it wasn’t going as fast as it should be. Therefore, I instructed the legal counsel to quickly purchase these services and to quickly come up with the negotiations of the terms and conditions,” the governor said in early June.
When the sites were first sought, Guam was anticipating the arrival of travelers from the Philippines, which was a COVID-19 high-risk area.
Fast-tracking
Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio compared the time taken to procure a homeless shelter to protect the island’s homeless population against COVID-19, to the controversial procurement of the initial quarantine facilities. The procurement process for the emergency homeless shelter took several weeks for GSA to reach out to landowners for potential sites and get a response.
He said even with the emergency procurement process for the homeless shelter fast-tracking that project, that same timeline wouldn’t have worked for the first set of quarantine facilities.
“I do have to say that I’m not certain we would have been able to get the quarantine facility in that quick of time. … So I would say that I think in many ways this does underscore that the administration and the governor did undertake and utilize the provision of law that was necessary to get people quarantined in a very fast way,” Tenorio said.
He pointed out FEMA’s initial approval of reimbursement – while still lacking the final approval and total amount to reimburse GovGuam – “further supports the method that was used at the first site.”
The initial budget published for CARES Act funding included $4 million to pay quarantine facilities.
“Now that we’re able to get a (FEMA) reimbursement, less of the CARES Act will have to be used. … It gives us some room to move and be able to use the CARES Act to respond to other needs going on in the community,” Tenorio said.
An audit of the quarantine facilities is ongoing. Tenorio said he would like to see the resulting recommendations.
