Cardinal Timothy Dolan thanked New York’s senior United States Sen. Charles “Chuck” Schumer and his staff for helping the Archdiocese of New York’s Catholic schools obtain needed funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during the COVID-19 pandemic, funds that allowed Catholic schools to reopen safely in the fall of 2020. This summer, the archdiocese received the final funding that offsets the expenses.

“We are grateful to Senator Schumer for recognizing the vital role that Catholic schools play in educating our young people, and working to ensure that the schools were treated fairly and received the support they needed during the difficult days of the COVID pandemic,” Cardinal Dolan told The Good Newsroom in a statement.

“When Covid hit it impacted students and faculty in all our schools – public, Catholic and more – so I was proud to champion and pass a provision in the American Relief Plan to provide historic access to billions in emergency FEMA relief for Catholic schools. New York’s Catholic schools are superb and also serve a large percentage of low-income and disadvantaged students, who deserve equal access to federal aid to cover Covid-related expenses the schools incurred as they deliver quality education for their students,” said Sen. Schumer in a statement to The Good Newsroom. “I am also proud that my office works closely and productively with the Archdiocese of New York to unclog the pipes in the bureaucracy when applications for millions of dollars in much-deserved FEMA aid get bogged down in the bureaucracy.”

Frank Napolitano, chief administrative officer of the Archdiocese of New York, said in an interview, “This was really a case where a large nonprofit and the government worked to benefit the public. Everyone pulled together, and our political leaders and we were on the same page to get things done.”

Catholic schools reopen for the 2020-21 academic year

During the summer of 2020, Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York faced a monumental challenge: meeting federal, state, and local health and safety requirements to reopen in the face of an unprecedented pandemic.

The United States declared a national public health emergency on March 13, 2020. New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo had already issued a similar declaration at the state level on March 7. Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of New York closed on March 16. Home-based learning began on March 23. Conditions did not permit a return to the classroom for the remainder of the 2019-2020 academic year.

However, in July, the decision was made to reopen schools for the 2020-21 academic year, an undertaking that would require significant investment and outlay of funds to address necessary infrastructure and policy changes to ensure that students, faculty, and staff could return to the classroom safely.

A Catholic Schools task force led by Cardinal Dolan and all the archdiocese’s executive directors assessed the needs of the schools and possible sources of funding to complete the work required.

Most significant among the upgrades mandated were improvements to ventilation; personal protective equipment (PPE) for all; and additional health aides to assist with and implement new policies, including testing, quarantines, mask use, and other requirements.

“That was a desperate time,” Napolitano said. While the archdiocese had previously worked with FEMA after Superstorm Sandy in 2013, the COVID-19 pandemic was a new kind of disaster, and in its initial stages, it was not immediately clear that FEMA would become involved.

“The thing with this particular situation was that it didn’t deal with loss of property or destruction, which is what [FEMA] usually handles,” said Matt Brellis, the chief accountability officer of the archdiocese.

However, as the pandemic continued and evolved, FEMA became involved and emerged as a potential source of funding for some of the necessary renovations and costs incurred. Working with consultants Stanton Vignes and The Sulzer Group, the archdiocese’s task force began to identify costs that would qualify for reimbursement by FEMA. The Archdiocese of New York was also eligible for aid in some cases from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

“We immersed ourselves in the regulations, went through them to find things and situations that would be covered. If something wasn’t covered, could we find an alternative that would be covered,” Brellis said.

The archdiocese’s parishes and high schools also applied for FEMA reimbursement and are waiting to receive funds, but for a lesser total amount.

During the process, at various points the archdiocese turned to the office of Sen. Schumer for assistance in connecting with FEMA to find the resources needed for the schools. Sen. Schumer’s office provided significant assistance to the archdiocese, its Catholic schools, and all the students and staff that rely on them.

Although some schools continued home learning temporarily in the early part of the semester, by mid-November, students and staff had returned to the classroom and remained there. The archdiocese was eventually reimbursed for most of its expenses and investments in pandemic-related upgrades and adjustments. The process of full reimbursement was not completed until earlier this summer.

“Sen. Schumer’s office was extremely helpful at critical junctures,” Napolitano said. “The Archdiocese of New York was a leader in its pandemic response. Everyone in the archdiocese should be very proud of what they did.”