Municipalities, police and fire departments eligible for CARES Act funding through county
Canonsburg police Chief Alex Coghill is grateful, on many levels, that none of the officers on his 19-member force came down with the novel coronavirus.
Just one of those levels has to do with staffing.
In a department of that size, overtime to cover the shift of someone with a prolonged absence would have caused “an ungodly amount of overtime should we have to go to a minimum staffing type of incident,” Coghill said.
Canonsburg’s top cop was joined by Washington’s Chief Robert Wilson and Bentleyville Chief Richard Young who, at the meeting Thursday of the Washington County commissioners, shone a spotlight on policing during a pandemic.
That’s where the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, known as CARES, comes in to the tune of $1,093,819 for municipal police departments.
Washington County commissioners, through CARES Act grants of state and federal dollars, have earmarked $1.5 million for which police and paid fire departments can apply.
“These are definitely trying times, and this money will be greatly appreciated,” Young said.
“It will be spent wisely,” Wilson told the board.
Among the expenses the CARES Act grant will cover in the Canonsburg Police Department will be “payroll, operating costs, overtime or salaries,” Coghill said. “We incurred a lot of losses during the whole COVID-19 thing, especially with diminished staff and staff working from home.
“I haven’t seen an agreement, so I’ll speak in generalities until I know for sure. It sounded like they want to keep it neat and tidy to go toward payroll issues.”
Coping with a pandemic was not anything anyone on the municipal front budgeted for in 2020.
“It’s not until the reality sets in that you start looking at your budget and you start seeing the decreased revenue,” Coghill continued.
“We’re talking about parking authorities, because when businesses are shut down, nobody’s coming into town, parking at meters or buying permits.
“In addition to that, we have school resource officers. When school’s out, the school’s not paying their salaries.
“Since we can use this for payroll, this is going to be a great boost to us because of the loss of revenue from school districts with our school resource officers.”
The total amount from CARES Act money for both police and paid fire departments in Washington County is $1.5 million.
The commissioners on Thursday adopted a resolution authorizing disbursement of COVID-19 County Relief Block Grant program funds, which allows the county to begin processing eligible reimbursements.
The tentative funding plan, for example, calls for $1.6 million for eligible expenses incurred by Washington County government; $7.5 million for reimbursement of expenses incurred by municipalities; $2 million for expansion of internet broadband and hot spots; and $7.5 million worth of grants for small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
The grant money must be spent by Dec. 30.
“We are awaiting review of the small business and nonprofit grant programs,” wrote Joshua Hatfield, Washington County finance director, in an email.