DENVER – FEMA has approved an additional $68.3 million in Public Assistance funding for the
COVID-19 response in Colorado. The assistance was made available under a major disaster declaration issued March 28, 2020. FEMA has now approved more than $1.8 billion in Public Assistance grant funds to Colorado for the COVID-19 response.
To help manage the critical shortage of health care workers during the pandemic, Colorado’s Staffing Shortage Fusion Center reviewed requests from medical facilities throughout the state that had been directly impacted by COVID-19 and used temporary medical staffing contracts to deploy credentialed medical staff and registered nurses to eligible non-profit facilities as needed.
The approved FEMA Public Assistance funds reimburse the State of Colorado for the following costs:
- $9.1 million to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to provide temporary medical staffing to 17 health care facilities statewide. Between October 29, 2021, and April 9, 2022, a total of 312 clinicians provided more than 92,000 hours of COVID-19 related care.
- $59.2 million to the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management to provide temporary registered nurses at 21 medical facilities between October 1, 2021, and April 30, 2022.
For the COVID-19 response, FEMA has simplified the Public Assistance application and funding process to address the magnitude of this event and to allow state and local governments to receive eligible funding more quickly. These reimbursements play a critical role as state, tribal and local officials work to assist their communities during the response.
To fully support this essential work, the President authorized provision of FEMA Public Assistance at 100 percent federal funding through July 1, 2022. Beginning July 2, 2022, the federal cost share for COVID-19 projects is 90 percent of the eligible cost.
Additional information about FEMA’s Public Assistance program can be found at www.fema.gov/assistance/public.