The Park County government will not be getting a set of big, digital whiteboards after all.

The county had planned to use $133,400 worth of federal COVID-19 relief money to purchase five 84-inch Microsoft Surface Hubs. The thought was that the Hubs — which can be used for video conferencing — could help keep county departments connected in the event of any pandemic-related disruptions.

However, the county was forced to scrap the order after the vendor was unable to deliver the devices by a state-imposed deadline.

Late last year, Congress decided to give states until the end of 2021 to spend the $150 billion they received under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. However, the State of Wyoming, which received $1.25 billion, still required counties to submit all of their invoices by Jan. 30.

The Park County IT department ordered the 85-inch Surface Hubs from CDW, an Illinois-based retailer, on Dec. 8, but the devices had yet to ship by the end of January. Park County CIO Mike Conners explained that nationwide demand for the larger Surface Hub models has been so high that the company “couldn’t manufacture them fast enough.”

With the county unable to use the CARES Act funding if the whiteboards shipped beyond the deadline, Conners canceled the order.

“We couldn’t tolerate trying to pay for that ourselves,” he said of the Hubs, which were priced at $26,679.91 apiece.

Conners called Wyoming’s deadline “very unfortunate,” noting that other states extended their deadlines following Congress’ action.

In an email, a spokesman for the governor’s office said Wyoming’s cut-off date came from the Legislature.

“Regardless of the federal extension of the CARES Act funding deadline, there was a state law that ended the [grant] program on Dec. 30, 2020,” Michael Pearlman said. The Office of State Lands and Investments “stuck with the deadline that was imposed under state law,” he said, and required counties to have actual invoices submitted to the office by Jan. 30.

The canceled order means that, of the roughly $3.1 million of CARES Act funding that the state had earmarked for the Park County government, commissioners left more than $1.5 million on the table. Much of that leftover funding went to Cody Regional Health and Powell Valley Healthcare.

The $1.63 million in CARES funding that the county did use mostly went toward covering portions of the salaries of workers who spent time dealing with the pandemic. The county also spent a couple hundred thousand dollars on cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment, remodeled a breakroom at the Powell landfill and purchased some new technology. For instance, the IT department was still able to purchase six 85-inch televisions ($6,393.75 apiece) and three 50-inch Surface Hubs ($8,824.89 apiece). However, there was a complication there, too, as one of the smaller Hubs went missing in transit and had to be re-shipped; as best they can figure, “somebody picked up an $8,000 device off the loading dock,” Conners said.

With the 85-inch Surface Hubs out of the picture, Conners is looking at alternative ways to set up the remote communications he’d envisioned. However, with the $133,000 no longer available, “that’s a pretty big chunk of money,” he said.

“It’s really sad,” Conners said, but “it is what it is.”