SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The state of California will have directly spent about $12.3 billion fighting the COVID-19 pandemic by next June, a recent state budget report estimated, including more than $8 billion over the past year.
The 11-digit price tag spread out over three fiscal years, first reported on by CalMatters, includes roughly $3 billion in mask contracts and other supply procurements, $1.9 billion in testing contracts, $1.7 billion in relief for the homeless and other vulnerable populations, and $1.6 billion for California’s prison system.
The state also projects a three-year total of nearly $1.4 billion will end up being spent on the vaccination campaign and about $1.3 billion on medical surge costs by the end of this fiscal year, which runs through June 2022.
The numbers, tallied by Department of Finance officials for the May revision to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2021-22 budget, show that the pandemic cost state agencies an estimated $2 billion during the 2019-20 fiscal year, $8.5 billion for 2020-21 and a projected $1.9 billion for the current fiscal year. California’s fiscal years begin each July; COVID-19 began spreading rapidly in the state in March 2020.
A standout in the tabulations is the massive cost of addressing COVID-19 at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Numerous state prisons were ravaged by severe coronavirus outbreaks.
At $1.04 billion, California spent slightly more from July 2020 to June 2021 fighting COVID-19 in its prison system than it did on distributing and administering tens of millions of vaccine doses across the general population, according to budget estimates.
The report estimates diagnostic testing for inmates and CDCR employees will end up costing the state more than $630 million over three years.
More than $1.1 billion of the projected $1.9 billion for statewide testing efforts are tied to the state’s contract with PerkinElmer; another estimated $465 million are marked for Logistics Health Inc. (OptumServe). Those are itemized separately from testing in prisons.
The estimates show more than $500 million listed under “support for small businesses,” $450 million in immigrant services and nearly a quarter billion dollars apiece for Project Roomkey and for food banks.
The state estimated nearly $235 million was spent on contact tracing efforts.
The state’s figures don’t include aid that went directly from the federal government to individuals or businesses, such as stimulus checks and Paycheck Protection Program loans.
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