Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak responds to a question during a news conference at the Sawyer State Building in Las Vegas, Tuesday, March 17, 2020. Sisolak ordered a monthlong closure of casinos and other non-essential businesses in order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19). (Steve Marcus/Las Vegas Sun via AP)
Gov. Steve Sisolak has set a Board of Examiners meeting for Wednesday to approve $6.25 million from the Disaster Relief Fund to purchase supplies to fight the coronavirus.
Nevada’s open meeting law normally mandates three days notice for public meetings but Chief of Staff Michele White said under Sisolak’s Emergency Directive 6 and two sections of the open meeting statute, they have the legal ability to hold the vote without the three-day notice.
Two items are on the agenda. The first is a $1.25 million appropriation to cover the state’s portion of a Federal Emergency Management grant award to buy emergency supplies and, “provide immediate assistance to state, county, local and tribal entities.”
The second work program is for a $5 million grant or loan from the Disaster Relief Fund that would be repaid by federal funds over the next four months.
The money would be used to buy more than 1.14 million N95 respirator masks, three-quarters of a million surgical masks, more than 1 million pairs of gloves as well as well as cases of hand sanitizer.
The total cost of all those items comes to $5.72 million.
The agenda packet says they also need laboratory equipment for both the northern and southern public health laboratories. But the agenda says they don’t have a price for those devices at this point or for the roughly 60,000 test kits they estimate will be needed.
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