Guidelines set on sharing county pandemic funds

The county took the next step Monday in disbursing more than $4 million in Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act money.

The Carlton County board of commissioners gave preliminary approval for a plan to disburse $4.356 million in CARES Act money to fund emergency needs of Carlton County government, communities, residents, businesses, and nonprofits adversely impacted by and responding to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Upon the recommendation of its CARES Act committee, the county board designated four different pots of money:

• $800,000 for small business assistance, to be used mostly for grants of up to $7,500 to help small businesses negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The grant program will be administered by the county Economic Development Agency.

• $800,000 for community assistance/public health, to help individuals who suffered impact from the pandemic, whether by lost wages, housing insecurity, mental or physical health issues and more. Much of the money will be distributed by county public health programs and/or existing nonprofits that serve individuals.

• $800,000 for community communications systems improvement, such as additional broadband services and other technology improvements, as well as upgrades to the county’s Emergency Operations Center, currently a work in progress at the old Cloquet City Hall building.

• $800,000 for Covid response reimbursement, infrastructure and miscellaneous community needs, including already purchased personal protective equipment and other modifications that were made (such as plexiglass shields) and expenses that are planned for in the ongoing response to the pandemic. Additional school needs might come from this pot, or things not covered in the small business grant.

The county received an additional $43,452 for distribution to cities and townships of fewer than 200 people for direct Covid-19 costs. The allocation is calculated as $75.34 multiplied by the number of the city population for cities under 200 or $25 multiplied by the town population for townships under 200. A resolution must be passed by the local authority and sent to Carlton County requesting such funding; otherwise, the money can be used for county-approved plans.

“We’re working hard to get these dollars out,” county coordinator Dennis Genereau said. “It will be an infusion of over $7 million (including funds sent directly to schools, cities and larger townships) into the county, between state, county and federal dollars, so we want to get the word out.”

The window for spending this funding is small. Expenses to be approved must have been incurred between March 1, 2020 and November 30, 2020. Monies allocated must be spent by December 1, 2020, or those funds must be returned to the state and then federal government.

Genereau said the county is holding an additional $1,185,482 in a reserve “pot,” because they think additional categories may open up for spending, and as a source of funds in case any of the other four different “pots” of money need additional funds.

“The plan is to use all of it, but we don’t necessarily want to use it all up in the first two months and then find out we have other needs,” Genereau told the Pine Knot News. “We’ll have things waiting in the wings, though. For example, if we were to spend all the funds in the small business pot, only to find later in October or November that there were additional small business needs, we would be able to use some of the reserve pot to provide additional small business funding.”

The county coordinator explained that the plans are based, in part, on discussions with other counties across the state that are making the same decisions. “This kind of breakdown is pretty common throughout the state,” he said.

Approval of the plan on Aug. 24 by the county board allows the designated county authorities to accept applications starting no later than Sept. 24 so they can start distributing monies. A more fleshed out plan will be presented to the Committee of the Whole on Sept. 1 with formal board approval at the board’s regular meeting Sept. 8.

Genereau said there will be outreach to businesses, townships, cities and more after the early September meetings and an online informational meeting. Tentative future plans include WebEx training on small business grants Sept. 14-28, multiple WebEx meetings on grant applications for business relief, and a yet-to-be-established CARES Act phone line to be answered by county-trained staff.

Genereau said businesses applying for grant funds will have to show financial hardship because of the pandemic, have a local office, local owners, at least one employee and be current on any taxes or bills owed to the county.

“If they can show they’ve been negatively impacted by Covid, that will help get them in the door,” Genereau said.

In addition to the monies given to Carlton County, an additional $1.7 million has been given to area schools, $1.4 million to Carlton County cities, and approximately $650,000 to Carlton County townships with a population of more than 200 people.

In other county news:

• Two new voting machines are to be ordered by the county auditor to handle increased balloting for the general election especially for mail-in ballots. The cost is estimated at $13,000.

• County engineer JinYeene Neumann said the filing deadline for private driveway snow plowing by county equipment is Oct. 1. Letters will be sent out to all of last year’s applicants and letters will be sent to all townships to spread the word of the deadline to apply for the service. District 5 commissioner Gary Peterson said he wanted to see this application process go smoothly and not have people scrambling for help after a major snowstorm, as happened last year.

• Peterson also asked why there had not been progress on an evaluation system for county department heads.

Genereau responded that much work had been done on the issue just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic and its immediate needs. The proposal includes departmental goal setting and evaluation with emphasis on individual goals and how each staff fulfill those goals. If that plan is approved by the board it will be presented to the management team.

“This is a start and I want to move forward,” Peterson said.