By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
An Ellis County committee approved recommendations for $5.7 million in CARES Act funding Wednesday morning.
The Ellis County Commission is set to approve the final funding at a meeting at 8 a.m. Thursday at the Ellis County Administrative Center.
The committee broke the funding into four categories — government, education, for-profit and non-profit.
The $500,000 in reimbursements is being recommended to go to the county, cities and schools to cover costs that have already been encumbered.
Government funding
The bulk of the government funding will pay for a $1.5 million computer aided dispatch system. The system will allow dispatchers to locate law enforcement officials in the field and contact them directly.
J.D. Cox, county administrator, explained to the county commission Monday the technology will allow dispatch to communicate information about possible COVID-19 patients to first responders directly without that information being broadcast publicly.
With the aid of GPS technology, the system will also allow dispatch to send officers closest to a scene to a call.
The county is also proposing spending $52,000 for four ventilators for county ambulances. More than $26,000 is proposed to pay contract tracers.
Education funding
Fort Hays State University requested $500,000 for a student stimulus program. However, members of the Ellis CARES committee agreed to use that money to fund the non-profit sector instead.
FHSU request No. 2, which was for $46,500, would fund a meal deliver program for students who may need to quarantine. FHSU request No. 3, which was for $100,000, would fund a program that would provide hotel rooms for students who needed to quarantine away from their primary housing.
Holy Family Elementary's request of $5,000 will pay for personal protective equipment.
For-profits
The Ellis CARES committee received more than $5 million in requests from businesses for funding. The subcommittee, which was lead by Doug Williams, Grow Hays director, pared that amount down to a recommendation of $915,538.
Williams said seven funding requests were made from oil companies. However, five of the seven requests came from a single person.
"The thinking of the committee was that the oil industry is a difficult one to relate COVID hardships on. You could argue that commodity prices have suffered because of the COVID pandemic," Williams said. "On the other hand, there were other world events that caused significant disruptions in the oil commodity prices."
"We really tried to focus in three areas as you can see. Those primarily being hotel, retail and restaurant, feeling those were the hardest hit from this and that is where we had the large requests."
Hotels were funding recommendations were based on the number of rooms at the businesses, Williams said.
A breakdown of the recommendations shows 27 percent of the recommended for-profit funds going to hotels, 25 percent going to retail, 39 percent going to food/restaurants, 8 percent going entertainment and the final 1 percent going to housing and medical/health.
Although requests ranged in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, no single business was recommended to receive more than $52,000.
Williams said he has already received push back from the community about the grant process.
"Unfortunately, it is a difficult situation when you have to make those kinds of decisions," Williams said. "I think it is particularly more so in the for-profits, because there are many, many for-profits that are not going to be given any funding and did not apply that are going to stand back and say they wish they had."
He added, "We did the best we could with what we had to work with."
Cox said more funding will be available through other programs. FEMA grant funds will be available to reimburse some government expenditures.
An $132,000 Community Development Block Grant is pending that could be used by local businesses for payroll and other expenses. There is more information on the block grant funding in the graphic below.
The state is also going to have a round two of direct grants to businesses, Cox said.
"It may take some of the sting out of the fact we can't fund everyone and everyone's needs," Cox said.
Non-profits
Sandy Jacobs of the Heartland Foundation chaired the subcommittee on non-profits.
KVC Hospital, a residential mental health care facility for youth in Hays, requested more than $315,000 in CARES Act funds. Jacobs said the subcommittee members thought KVC had other means of funding, so it only recommended funding $26,000 of agency's request.
First Care Clinic was recommended for the largest single non-profit payment — $143,000. The clinic offers health care on a sliding-fee basis.
Brant Rice, senior pastor at Celebration Community Church, said the $24,700 that was recommended for the church will be used to purchase hand sanitizing stations that will be available to any church in the county. Congregations can contact Rice for more information on the program.
The subcommittee did not recommend funding for Professional Disc Golf. The organization has an annual disc golf tournament in Hays, but is not located in Ellis County, Jacobs said.
The committee made its recommendations on unanimous vote.