BELLEFONTE It’s back.
Starting this week, Centre County residents will once again have access to free, walk-in COVID-19 testing at the Nittany Mall in State College.
At Tuesday’s Centre County Board of Commissioners’ meeting, county administrator Margaret Gray announced that testing will return to the mall at the site of the former Bon-Ton department store. The hours of operation are from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Testing at the site began on Tuesday and will run through Saturday, Jan. 9. The second round of testing will take place from Tuesday, Jan. 12 through Saturday, Jan. 16.
However, once those weeks are complete, the county will have to find a new location.
BELLEFONTE On Tuesday, the Centre County Board of Commissioners approved the 2021 budget.
The 2021 budget came in at $81.6 million. The good news? Centre County residents will see no property tax increase for the 11th consecutive year. The millage rate will remain at unchanged at 7.84 mills.
There were some minor tweaks to the budget, according to Centre County director of financial management, Tom Martin. The final budget had some minor changes for the better from the tentative one introduced on Dec. 8. Revenues are now at $78,636,015, an increase of $35,074 from the proposed budget resulting from adjusted departmental projections.
Additionally, expenditures decreased by $43,670 following personnel changes and employee selection of insurance options during the open enrollment period. They total $81,619,783 including $80,708,583 in operating budget expenditures and $911,200 in capital reserve funds.
CHRIS MORELLI cmorelli@lockhaven.com
BELLEFONTE Over the past several months, Centre County government has made the most of the CARES Act county relief block grant.
At Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners’ meeting, COVID-19 grant coordinator Mary Kay Williams presented a “high level overview” of how the funds have been distributed throughout the county. Williams, who joined the staff “five months and one week ago,” talked at length about the funds and broke down the process of distribution.
“We covered a lot of ground together,” Williams said. “I really feel so grateful that so much of it was successful. The main success of this whole initiative was the great teamwork that we have.”
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BELLEFONTE Free COVID-19 testing will be returning to Centre County in 2021.
At Tuesday’s Centre County Board of Commissioners’ meeting, they unanimously extended the contract with AMI Expeditionary Healthcare. Free testing will take place from Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021 through Saturday, Jan. 30, 2021. Testing will take place from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays.
With cases in Centre County skyrocketing at an alarming rate, the commissioners felt the need to act, especially with the Christmas and New Year’s holiday on the horizon.
“I do think that this period of testing will be crucial as we will have individuals that will potentially travel after Christmas or even celebrate New Year’s, and we would want to have testing in place past that,” chair Michael Pipe said.