EDITORIAL: Relief funds go toward Henderson’s City Hall renovation

Nevada has received more than $1 billion in coronavirus relief aid from Washington, but the city of Henderson was left empty-handed when it came to a direct allocation. Instead it earned a nice chunk of change — $30 million — that was laundered through Clark County and sent to local municipalities.

The expenditure is looking worse and worse. Last week, the Henderson City Council voted to use $2 million of the pandemic money for ongoing City Hall renovations.

Henderson’s city government has long had an insular and parochial feel, but this move is a flat-out middle finger to the taxpayers, much like the city of Las Vegas effort to divert virus relief funds toward bonuses for public-sector employees. Only in Southern Nevada.

Under federal law, the relief money is supposed to be directed toward coronavirus-related endeavors and small business support. Henderson officials hide behind the fig leaf that expanding the lobby at City Hall fits the bill because it will better accommodate social distancing. A city spokesman argued in an email to the Review-Journal’s Blake Apgar that the new health screening space at the security checkpoint would include “enhanced air filtration/exchange.”

Using that logic, the city could use virus money to build all council members their own personal break rooms to ensure they stayed at a safe distance from each other in the name of disease control.

In fact, the city had planned the building renovations long before the virus hit. The bids for the project, which included the “renovation/expansion of the existing City Hall entrance,” went out in December, Mr. Agpar reported. In other words, the social distancing canard is an excuse to justify spending the money in a manner for which it wasn’t intended.

Certainly, some struggling Henderson small businesses could use a share of that $2 million as they hang by a thread in an effort to survive over the coming months. Instead, their elected officials prefer to siphon off the cash for a project they had commissioned months before anyone on the council had likely heard of the word “coronavirus.”

Congressional Democrats have long insisted on tying strict strings to taxpayer money the government has directed toward private businesses to help them weather this pandemic. They’re rarely as enthusiastic about ensuring public-sector institutions adhere to strict standards with that same money. Henderson’s shenanigans highlight why such accountability is vital for local governments.

Yes, the $2 million at stake here is a droplet in the Pacific overall. But let’s hope somebody at the Treasury Department, which is in charge of ensuring virus relief funds are spent legally, is paying attention.