Last Friday, the president signed into law House Bill 748, the “Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.” In it, the Federal government authorized more than $2 trillion in emergency relief aid for individual taxpayers, businesses, public health institutions, and state and local governments. We’ve looked through the bill to see where local governments might find some relief from the impact of the pandemic response and have identified a number of potential avenues.
The bill itself is little more than a list of authorizations for various expenditures with qualifications and formulas to determine where the money flows. There is still plenty of work to be done to create the mechanisms for distributing the money. Most of the appropriations are required to be invested on impacts related to the Coronavirus pandemic, although there are exceptions.
From what we see in the bill, there are a number of avenues for local governments and school districts to receive funds, both as pass-throughs from other agencies or as grants from specific programs, using pre-existing processes.
Below are areas of the bill that contain potential funding opportunities for counties, cities and school districts.
(Read more: ELGL)
