Let's Cut Some Spending: $1.6 million in COVID funds to upgrade turf fields

Remember the absolutely critical Omnibus spending bill Congress muscled through at the end of last year? It was 4,000 pages that no one read and cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion.

In our Let's Cut Some Spending series, ForAmerica will chronicle parts of the 2021 and 2022 spending bills from a variety of sources that you probably don't know about - programs, grants and spending of all kinds that should have never happened in the first place and many that are still happening.

Today’s offering: $1.6 million in COVID funds to upgrade turf fields!

The Associated Press reports:

One Wisconsin school district built a new football field. In Iowa, a high school weight room is getting a renovation. Another in Kentucky is replacing two outdoor tracks — all funded by the billions of dollars in federal pandemic relief Congress sent to schools this year.

The money was part of a $123 billion infusion intended to help schools reopen and recover from the pandemic. But with few limits on how it can be spent, The Associated Press found that some districts have used large portions for athletics projects they couldn’t previously afford…

When school officials in Whitewater, Wisconsin, learned they would be getting $2 million in pandemic relief this year, they decided to use most of it to cover their current budget, freeing up $1.6 million in local funding that’s being used to build new synthetic turf fields for football, baseball and softball.

Play ball - with your money!

Intended for COVID relief. Actually used for anything but.