GMH draws down $942K in ARPA funds

Last week, the Guam Memorial Hospital board of trustees discussed the status of American Rescue Plan Act funded capital improvement projects to address many of the hospital's critical health and safety needs.

Rodalyn Garrido, deputy assistant administrator of operations, reported that as of Oct. 14, eight projects were completed, 20 projects are ongoing and four new bids were received.

"This list, of course, as we mentioned before, continues to change slightly just based on, you know, how the procurement goes. So, for example, of course, our team has been working really hard to try to get all of these things obligated, all the projects obligated. But as the prices or as the price quotes come in or as the bids come in, and as we try to award them, if for whatever reason we budget something and the prices come in lower, we'll take the surplus of that particular project and move it towards another project, all in the, you know, interest of trying to get through all of our CIP projects," Garrido explained.

GMH has drawn down $942,115 against 11 projects. Garrido said currently there are 19 projects in "active solicitation."

"This list continues to change. So, for example, just this week we have, I believe, four or five, if these that were all due, invitation for bids for various projects that were due just this week. So in the next couple (of) weeks, we're going to be working on evaluating those bids that came in. And hopefully, if everything is good, we can award on those. But again, as I mentioned, as the bids come in, and already I'm seeing that on some of these bids that are coming in more recently, the amounts that we're budgeting for them are actually much less than what the bids are coming in at," she said.

The hospital and its board will need to determine if funds will need to be reallocated to other projects.

"So, we'll probably have to discuss some things with (Lillian Perez-Posadas.) So (I) just want to bring that up at this point. But again, we're continuing to work on all these projects," she said.

The hospital has until Dec. 31 to obligate the remaining ARPA funds and two years to spend it, but first, they must evaluate what projects are at risk of not being completed.

"At this time, there might be a couple (of) projects. ... There's several bids that came in just in the last few days, which are over the amount that we had originally estimated. But because they're over the amount, we need to make a decision," Garrido said. "Because they are over the amount that we originally estimated for them, we would need to really revisit to make sure if there are any projects in here that would probably be at risk for not completing that we would decide together, ... possibly to remove that from the list and just take the funding that we had originally allocated there, towards the projects that are over budget."

Garrido said the intent is to obligate the entire $20 million in ARPA funds.