Olympic Times

Clallam County small businesses negatively affected by COVID-19 have the opportunity to apply for Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act grants from the Clallam County Economic Development Council (EDC), which has secured $4.18 million in funds.

On July 21, the commissioners considered a $350,000 sub-recipient agreement with the EDC for allocating the CARES Act funds, Peninsula Daily News reported. The EDC will use the county-administered funds for its Small Business Lifeboat grant program.

Clallam County Chief Financial Officer Mark Lane told commissioners more sub-recipient agreements will follow.

“The sooner, the better,” Commissioner Randy Johnson told Peninsula Daily News. “I mean, people are in need, obviously.”

The six priority areas the county will focus CARES Act funding on are public health, business support, rental and utility assistance, support for the homeless population, childcare and food security.

Private businesses that provide childcare will receive $60,000 of the $350,000 total, according to an executive summary.

“We’re moving the ball forward,” Lane told commissioners in a work session. “I’m guessing you’ll probably be seeing one and two sub-recipient agreements a week, probably, for the next two or three weeks until we have all of our loose ends tracked down and the things pushed through the process.”

Lane said the EDC received more than 100 applications for its Small Business Lifeboat program and that grants of up to $10,000 will be distributed to small businesses with monthly expenditure reports sent to the county, Peninsula Daily News reported. 

“I believe EDC’s process on the back end is very robust and we shouldn’t have any issues with this,” Lane said in the work session. “It eliminates this dual reimbursement billing process. Given how long it takes for us to get checks processed through our system and all of that, it could literally have added another 30 to 45 days before the funding got to EDC.”

Items discussed in work sessions by the commissioners are generally approved the following week.

“Given the timeframe in which I know we’re trying to get these monies deployed, I went ahead and teed it up for formal approval for our meeting tomorrow,” Lane told commissioners. “In terms of the other agreements, things are moving along very well. I was able to make a lot of connections last week, and I’m starting to get the information needed in order to flesh out what these other agreements are going to look like.”

Direct grant agreements with Serenity House of Clallam County for homeless services and the Port Angeles and Sequim food banks for the purchase of cold storage units to improve food security, among other CARES Act expenditures, are expected to be considered by the commissioners.

Lane said they are expecting the county’s Health and Human Services Department to request funding for public health staff positions that were added to help in the county’s response to the coronavirus.

Clallam County has allocated all but $150,000 of its CARES Act money, Lane told Peninsula Daily News.