During State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2021, the Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS), with approval from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), postponed the request for applications on the use of Civil Monetary Penalties (CMP) because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing projects, funded in previous cycles, continued to operate on schedule until the onset of COVID-19. The majority of projects experienced interruptions to project activities during the SFY. In 2020 (SFY 2021), CMS granted the states the ability to use CMP funds in response to the COVID-19 pandemic for two special projects: Communicative Technology and In-Person Visitation Aids to help ease the negative effects of COVID-19 on the highly impacted residents of nursing facilities.

From January through March 2021, the SFY 2022 application cycle began with the solicitation of projects from qualified applicants. DMAS received nineteen complete applications by the March 31, 2021 deadline. The applications were reviewed and forwarded to CMS for final funding determination for the SFY 2022 cycle.

On July 1, 2020, the CMP Fund was at $12,045,279. During the year, nursing facility penalty payments received totaled $3,386,698. With the cancellation of the SFY 2021 cycle and with ongoing projects experiencing interruptions, the expenditures totaled $542,913. This resulted in the CMP Fund having an end-of-year balance of $14,879,970. The 2020 Appropriations Act increased the appropriation authority to $1.32 million for SFY 2021 and $2.31 million for SFY 2021, allowing DMAS to expand the program further.

Expenditures during the SFY include funds for ongoing projects approved in previous cycles and for the two CMS approved COVID-19 initiatives.