A team of workers in white suits, masks and goggles hauled equipment into the entrance at the bottom floor of Port Huron’s Municipal Office Center earlier this month.

They wiped down surfaces and used a fogger to spray disinfectant in areas of the city’s police department. Within the next few days, the crew from Jarvis Property Restoration would return to work on disinfecting patrol cars.

The routine has emerged to be among the city’s precautions to protect essential employees in the response to the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

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City Manager James Freed has said Jarvis’ services, including for part of the MOC and the city’s fire stations, costs between $11,000 and $15,000 a week. Although officials said the city hadn’t been billed for those services as of early April, the cost of its COVID-19 impact overall was already reaching up into the thousands, including overtime,  personal protective equipment and other supplies.

Officials said they expect most expenses will be reimbursed by federal aid. But with a similar wave of precautions also underway across St. Clair County — and with local government workers still busy in response to the virus — it remained unclear exactly what total costs will be.

“This reimbursement will take years to figure out,” said Justin Westmiller, emergency management director for St. Clair County. “This is going to be a very in-depth accounting process. Right now, we are tracking personnel and costs like that. But there are second-order costs and (more).”

According to a cost list from the city of Port Huron, officials were relying on some existing contract services in addition to added equipment purchases to manage the COVID-19 response. Much of that was also in the city’s fire department, and Fire Chief Corey Nicholson put together the most detailed list in reply to questions from the Times Herald.

Spending as of April 8 had totaled around $30,000 and addressed washer/dryer needs at a fire station, and protective equipment such as masks.

Freed said on April 10, that the city had also spent $3,665 in wages related to personnel time spent on COVID-related activities. That, like the Jarvis services, was not included in the list of costs.

The city manager acknowledged most of the spending was done in public safety, where employees more often reported to central offices in addition to time in the field.  

The costs also are expected to continue. Yet despite the unprecedented nature of the coronavirus crisis, Freed said the city was equipped to meet the need temporarily.

“These are all normal costs for an event and we anticipate them all being reimbursed,” he said. “We have reserve funds and emergency funds and rainy day funds for just such an occasion, and we have enough funds on hand to protect the citizens and make sure our citizens have everything they need.”

Other personnel who may have to work in the field, such as public works employees, do so often on an on-call basis, Freed said.

“What we’ve had done is we dispatch them from their house. If we need them on the job site, they leave from their house,” he said. “If there’s a water main break … we’re not having them gather and congregate (before).”

Otherwise, employees are working from home. Although city hall is closed, Freed said, “This notion that people are at home not working is a misnomer.”

The city’s website links to COVID-19 resources and announcements about alterations in city services at www.porthuron.org/alert_detail.php.

When the county declared an emergency because of historic flooding in 2019 — something officials anticipate happening this year, as well — emergency management compiled a list of costs from local communities for things like sandbags and efforts to accommodate damaged infrastructure in a request to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to also make an emergency declaration.

Now, however, Westmiller said the county was not similarly tracking costs amid the coronavirus. He said local municipalities and townships are tracking their own.

“They will be turning their own costs to FEMA for this situation,” he said.

As of Monday, Westmiller said emergency management had spent $64,370. As of April 5, he said the county health department had spent $284,577. Most of the costs so far were payroll-related and for supplies.

Costs countywide were not yet available.

Westmiller said at daily briefings for the crisis, he could probably share some exact personnel costs, but he added that “at the end of the day, that will not be the total number” of what the county spends.

He’s got a public assistance applicant handbook nearby, he said, and they’re waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to put out clearer guidance on what costs will be reimbursable.

Still, Westmiller said, “There may be things we don’t know yet that we can go back and seek reimbursement.” That could mean better understanding volunteer hours, he said, any sort of damage from the virus, and impact on the economy that the county takes.

Health department spokeswoman Jennifer Michaluk said the $284,577 covered staff time of those physically working at the health department, staff at the county's emergency operation center and staff working from home, as well as other costs such as supplies. 

"This may not be a total account of all of our costs, (which) we will have a better picture of, at the end of this emergency," Michaluk said in an email. "... We will also be working at attempting to get as much reimbursement as we can after the event is over."

Other St. Clair County communities planned to keep track of most COVID-19 costs in fire departments or with public safety officials.

But for local officials like Marysville Public Safety Chief Tom Konik, it is a process still being figured out.

In Fort Gratiot, Fire Chief Pat Smith said his department was tracking costs for personal protective equipment like N-95 masks and disinfecting supplies for their trucks and equipment, but that he hadn't done any tallies. 

"Right now, it’s probably just a few thousand," he said.

Fort Gratiot Supervisor Rob Crawford said they didn’t have much spending outside the township’s fire department, using wipes already in stock and putting public works employees in individual trucks to arrive in the field “just to separate as much as possible and just doing the emergency work.”

Clay Township Supervisor Artie Bryson said the township was continuing to pay employees even if they’re not working — a big part of the township’s COVID cost.

So far, though, he said they weren’t sure on all the numbers quite yet.

“I think that is costing us about 20,000 for the last payroll,” he said. “As far as added costs, we had to buy PPE and things to keep our first responders safe. But truthfully, I have just a barebones staff, so we’re not really tracking it closely yet. I know a lot of the stuff we’ve had is stuff donated. We wrote a small grant to Ford Motor Company and they gave us face shields. We’ve received some aprons to go over clothes, and we’ve had numerous people give us … homemade masks. That definitely helped.”

Jackie Smith is the local government reporter for the Times Herald. Have questions or a story idea? Contact her at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.