$13.5 million available, $21 million in requests so far for Sedgwick County COVID fund
A fund set up by Sedgwick County to assist local health and human service providers with coronavirus pandemic expenses already has far more requests than money, with three weeks left before the deadline to apply.
As of now, the fund has $13.5 million in funding and about 60 applications seeking nearly $21 million.
Those numbers were reported Thursday in a joint meeting of the County Commission and a committee set up to advise commissioners on how to spend the money.
Brent Shelton, the county’s economic development director, said some of the major expense categories reflected in the requests so far include:
▪ $2.5 million that providers have spent or will spend on information technology to allow employees to work from home during the pandemic.
▪ $1.7 million for personal protective equipment such as masks, gloves, gowns and face shields.
▪ $400,000 for equipment and materials to regularly disinfect work spaces.
One single entity, an unidentified community clinic, has requested more money than is in the fund — almost $14 million —according to a spreadsheet provided to commissioners. The spreadsheet showed the requests but not who was making them.
The next-largest request was $2.3 million from a social service provider. The rest ranged from as high as $500,000 to as low as $395.
Up for grabs is funding set aside by the commission from the county’s $99.6 million grant from the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, commonly known as the CARES Act.
Of the $13.5 million, the commission has earmarked $7 million for community social-service providers and $6.5 million for public health providers.
The money is available to for-profit and non-profit groups.
Thursday’s meeting was to give the ad hoc committee guidance so that the funding recommendations reflect county priorities such as mental health, senior citizens, the homeless and underserved communities.
“We also ought to prioritize nonprofits over for-profits,” Commissioner David Dennis said.
The only real decision commissioners made Thursday was when to cut off the funding requests.
They unanimously set a deadline of Sept. 20 for applications, so that businesses and nonprofits can get the money in hand in time to spend it before the end of December.
Any CARES money not spent by then has to be sent back to the federal government.
More applications are expected and commissioners directed their staff to make special outreach to organizations serving minority communities between now and the deadline.
Applications for funding are available at www.sedgwickcounty.org/covid-19/cares-funding/.
Complicating matters is that the organizations applying for county funding might also apply for other federal and state COVID-relief funds, said Tom Stolz, county manager.
With COVID funds as scarce as they are amid mounting expenses for government agencies, the county doesn’t want to spend its allocation on programs that qualify for assistance through other sources.
“In effect, we’re in a poker game waiting to see who’s going to fund things so we don’t have to,” Stolz said.
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 3:38 PM.
