Hawaii’s share of $1.9 trillion in pandemic relief funding provided by the federal government last year is going to be used down to the last dollar, according to Gov. David Ige.

The governor Tuesday provided a partial accounting of the $1.6 billion in American Rescue Plan Act aid sent to Hawaii in May and said much of it has already been spent while the rest will be spent by a 2026 deadline.

“We were able to allocate the entire $1.6 billion that was provided,” he said. “(No money) will be returned to the federal government.”

Hawaii lawmakers did much of the allocating last year, though some of their work was done before receiving complete federal guidance as to how the money could be spent. Ige said only a few appropriations did not meet federal requirements, though other efforts to allocate ARPA funds in alignment with federal guidelines were successful.

County governments received separate ARPA funding totaling roughly $450 million, and county officials are in charge of spending that money.

Half of the ARPA money for the state, $800 million, went to repay federal loans the state used to pay unemployment insurance benefits that are traditionally funded by taxes on businesses.

“This support was very vital to us in terms of economic recovery, as we did not want to saddle businesses and employers with the added costs of the (unemployment insurance) system,” Ige said.

Another $70 million was used to pay for expanded unemployment claims processing operations, including a call center and case adjudicators, which were deployed to address a monumental backlog of claims and help frustrated claimants.

The second-biggest chunk of ARPA spending in Hawaii highlighted by Ige was $84 million used to cover emergency medical services and injury prevention work.

Other uses of ARPA money related to health care included $48 million that went to state hospital and medical care systems, and $8 million that went to the State Department of Health for administrative costs.

Over $100 million went to support tourism, including $60 million for the Hawaii Tourism Authority, $41 million for the Hawaii Safe Travels program and $11 million for the Hawai‘i Convention Center.

Several other allocations of at least $10 million also were highlighted by Ige. They included $50 million that went to the Department of Public Safety for coronavirus response, $28 million for the University of Hawaii, $10.8 million for homeless services and $10 million for COVID-19 testing.

At the low end of distributions, Ige said $1.3 million was allocated for scholarships, $1.5 million for broadband expansion planning and $5 million for a conservation job training program called Green Job Youth Corps.

In all, Ige listed uses for a little over $1.2 billion of the $1.6 billion received, and said his list wasn’t a complete tally.

The governor thanked state lawmakers, Hawaii’s congressional delegation, nonprofits and other partners who helped obtain, allocate and use the ARPA money.

“We are very grateful for this federal support, and it came at a pivotal time for us to help rebuild our economy,” Ige said. “We know we need to leverage as much federal funding as possible that we can get as a state, and make sure that we spend it in the areas of high need. … We do believe we were successful in getting these important funds to those who needed it most.”

SPENDING BREAKDOWN

Biggest uses of $1.6 billion in federal American Rescue Plan Act aid by Hawaii’s state government:

$800M

to repay federal loans covering unemployment benefits

$84M

for Emergency Medical Services and injury prevention

$70M

for unemployment insurance operations

$60M

for the Hawaii Tourism Authority

$50M

for the Department of Public Safety

$41M

for the Hawaii Safe Travels program

$28M

for the University of Hawaii

$32M

for the state hospital system

$16M

for the Hawaii Health Systems Corp.

$11M

for the Hawai‘i Convention Center

Source: Gov. David Ige