As of Wednesday, counties throughout Kansas were exactly three months away from the deadline for spending $400 million in Coronavirus Relief Funding released to counties by the governor’s Office of Recovery.
Saline County has now expended $2.2 million of the $11 million awarded locally. The county continues to work closely with government, educational, non-profit, and business institutions around the community that was awarded funds as part of the local plan submitted to the State on Aug. 14 and approved on Sept. 4. Progress on Saline County’s spending plan can be monitored on our website at https://www.saline.org/Coronavirus/CRF-Funding.
Additionally, the county is excited to announce that two of our partner organizations, the Salina Area Chamber Foundation and Child Care Aware of Kansas, are opening up grant programs targeting needs for the business and child care communities, respectively. Information about these programs can be found at https://web.salinakansas.org/wcwebinput/grant-application.aspx and https://ks.childcareaware.org/cares/.
County staff and our Advisory Committee continue to monitor needs in the community and prepare to respond to unmet needs with any funds that remain available. In addition, the county will be working over the next week to submit the first in a series of required progress reports to the State’s Office of Recovery.
Background: As part of the $2.2 trillion federal stimulus package known as the CARES Act, $150 billion was awarded to states and large local governments. Kansas received $1.25 billion, of which $240+ million went to Johnson and Sedgwick counties based on population. Of the remaining $1.03 billion, the Governor’s Task Force on Strengthening People and Revitalizing Kansas recommended (and the State Finance Council approved) awarding $400 million to Kansas counties based on their population and their impact from the COVID-19 disease. Saline County was awarded $11,026,434.
The Saline County Commissioners agreed to accept this funding via resolution and formed a citizen advisory committee to make a recommendation on distribution. The advisory committee received over 100 applications from local entities impacted by the pandemic. Per CARES Act terms, all funds must be spent by Dec. 30, 2020, on an eligible activity; reimbursement of lost revenue to local governments is not eligible for funding.