Indianapolis received over $200 million in COVID relief; here’s where it went

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Since Congress passed the first economic stimulus package in March 2020, $3 billion of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act money has been spent in Indiana.

I-Team 8 has been investigating how the money was spent for the last year and half and has collected more than 2,000 pages of documents and tracked the spending across the state. But we start with the city of Indianapolis.  

Indianapolis was handed more than $200 million, Mackenzie Higgins, a policy advisor in Mayor Joe Hogsett’s office, says. 

“About 50% went to serving our households and our businesses to ensure that they were able to survive the crisis,” Higgins said. 

Of the $200 million, $168 million went to coronavirus relief efforts. That includes $16 million in small business loans and grants. Another $39 million was used for rent assistance. I-Team 8 previously explained how the city used almost $10M of rent assistance money for hotels to house the city’s homeless population. 

Most of the money was to be used to pay for a year’s worth of rent for people who qualified. The city admitted to I-Team 8 at the time that the money intended for the rapid rehousing program was slow to get into the right hands.  

Initially, Congress required the coronavirus relief bill money be used by the end of 2020, but that timeframe was eventually extended. However, Indianapolis had already spent its share by mid-December. I-Team 8 asked the city if it could have done without the money.

 “Absolutely not,” Higgins said. “First and foremost, the city when the crisis began had to operate as both employer and service provider, and so about 40% of the investment went into things like investing in technology to ensure that our employees that could work remotely and work safely could do so [and ensuring] that we had leased additional equipment so that our DPW employees were able to socially distance while they collected trash. And so that was just critical for our ability to continue to operate, just perform the basics of government let alone the additional community investments we made to stabilize our residents and our businesses.” 

 Documents obtained by I-Team 8 show how the city spent the money. The Arts Council of Indianapolis received more than $500,000.  

The Capital Improvement Board, which operates Lucas Oil Stadium and Bankers Life Fieldhouse, was given more than $15 million. The Indianapolis Private Industry Council, which operates Employ Indy, was given more than $5 million.

Initially, federal rules didn’t allow the use of coronavirus relief bill money to buy equipment, vehicles or buildings. Only expenses directly related to addressing the COVID-19 pandemic were allowed, like personal protective equipment, medical supplies and testing. But then the rules started to change and blew the lid right off the spending caps.  

Indianapolis was able to purchase some technology that has a shelf life beyond the pandemic. The city did receive an additional $4 million to cover public safety salaries.

A summary of Indianapolis’ sources of funding can be found here. Below is a breakdown of how Indianapolis has spent its coronavirus relief bill money.

• App users: Click here to see Indianapolis’ spending breakdown

This is the first story in a series we’re calling “INside Story.” The rest of Richard‘s stories looking into coronavirus relief bill spending will air each evening this week on News 8.