City to start incentive program to promote COVID-19 vaccination

The city of Madison is planning to put some of the American Rescue Plan Act (or ARPA) funds it is receiving to use on incentives for residents to get the COVID-19 vaccine.  

The city will receive just more than one-point-three-million dollars in these funds.  During their meeting Tuesday, Madison City Commissioners voted to allocate up to 50-thousand dollars of them for a vaccine incentive program.  Commissioner Adam Shaw made the proposal of how he’d like to see it handled.

Shaw said he had been approached about the potential program by Dakota State University, who is willing to work with the city on promoting vaccinations and the incentive program.

Commissioner Kelly Dybdahl expressed his concern with committing that much money to the incentive program without knowing how effective it will be. 

Shaw made the motion to allocate up to 50-thousand dollars of the ARPA funds in the form of Chamber Mad Money for the incentive program.  He proposed starting with 25-thousand dollars and seeing where the vaccine rates are at after five weeks to determine if the city wants to continue the program with the remainder of the funds.