By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Buchanan County has distributed most of the $10.2 million it received in federal coronavirus funding.
Buchanan County Presiding Commissioner Lee Sawyer says the county provided $5,000 grants to 303 small businesses.
“We’ve been very cautious, but we also wanted to get the money out and into people’s hands as soon as we could, especially with the small business grants because we know that there were some of the businesses that were shut down and their bills kept coming,” according to Sawyer.
Sawyer says the commission has worked to help county school districts to adjust to COVID-19 precautions. Some of the money has been set aside to reimburse school districts for pandemic-related expenses.
Sawyer says the County Commission will be holding several meetings over the next couple of weeks about how best to used the rest of the money.
The county allocated $250,000 to conduct the county-wide antibody testing at Mosaic Life Care.
Sawyer says the county expects applications for reimbursement for coronavirus-related expenses to keep coming in.
“Now we’re seeing more reimbursement, sort of larger chunks from organizations that now know exactly what their needs were and are with masks and hand sanitation and partitions in between cubicles and things maybe that didn’t exist before to create a barrier for people,” Sawyer says. “So, we’re seeing more of that.”
So far, approximately $9 million has been spent or set aside.
Sawyer praises the work of various county officials in fully vetting those who received CARES Act funding to ensure the money goes to offset legitimate expenses.
Congress passed the CARES Act and the state of Missouri allocated money to each county on a per capita basis.