The Pennsylvania General Assembly divided $625 million to counties across the state from the CARES Act, federal COVID-19 relief funding.

A little over $3.5 million is coming to Warren County and the Warren County Commissioners are working through what to do with it.

Commissioner Ben Kafferlin said the focus of next Monday’s work session would be a “prioritization” of a list of requests from county departments and municipalities that have put in requests.

While $3.5 million is quite a bit of money, he cautioned that it is not funding that the commissioners are free to just give away.

“(That is) not the case at all,” he said.

“This funding is strictly for support of COVID-19-related activities to offset the cost of direct county COVID-19 response; assist businesses and municipalities; provide behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment services; fund nonprofit assistance programs; and deploy broadband to unserved or underserved areas,” according to a statement from the commissioners provided later Monday.

“The County Commissioners are expecting a response from DCED soon of approval for their application. In the meantime, the Commissioners are working to get more guidance on the utilization of these funds from both DCED as well as the County accounting firm, Zelenkofske Axelrod LLC, who have been working with ‘direct funded’ Counties, such as Allegheny and Westmoreland, who’ve already received CARES money and have produced associated programs for utilization of the grant funding.”

The range of potential projects is very wide and Kafferlin said they are seeking big project ideas “down to ‘I need hand sanitizer for my department.'”

Other areas he mentioned are those who have costs to date that are COVID-19 related and “anything they need for COVID response moving forward to the end of the year.”

An example of a larger project, he explained, is the potential in forming a regional Department of Health. Many other counties have their own health departments but Warren County does not.

This funding is strictly for support of COVID-19-related activities to offset the cost of direct county COVID-19 response; assist businesses and municipalities; provide behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment services; fund nonprofit assistance programs; and deploy broadband to unserved or underserved areas.

The County Commissioners are expecting a response from DCED soon of approval for their application. In the meantime, the Commissioners are working to get more guidance on the utilization of these funds from both DCED as well as the County accounting firm, Zelenkofske Axelrod LLC, who have been working with “direct funded” Counties, such as Allegheny and Westmoreland, who’ve already received CARES money and have produced associated programs for utilization of the grant funding.

“It is the expectation of the Commissioners that the bulk of the funding be used to support local businesses, local nonprofits, and local municipalities; however, there is much more to learn to make sure that the County government complies with all State and Federal regulations related to the utilization of the funds, so the community should remain patient as that information is gathered from the proper authorities,” the commissioners state.

There are strings to the funding, for example any small business that took federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding is ineligible here, Kafferlin said.

Kafferlin said each commissioner is meeting with departments and municipal partners and those cost and project lists will serve as the basis for next Monday’s discussion.