The Warren County Commissioners plan to make its first CARES Act distributions on Wednesday.

The county received roughly $3.5 million in federal COVID-19 aid and have decided to keep between $1 million and $1.5 million for county-related COVID-19 expenses with the rest — roughly $2 million — is available to county nonprofits and businesses for expenses related to the pandemic.

The first disbursements that Commissioner Ben Kafferlin outlined during Monday’s work session will come from that smaller pot of funds and includes a fire department proposal and some IT resources for the county.

He explained that the IT request centered on laptops that would allow county employees to work remotely in the event of a second shut down.

He said those machines would replace aging computers in some instances, enabling people to not be “tethered” to their desks.

On the non-profit and business side, Commissioner Tricia Durbin said that the time needed to make decisions on the applications will be extended.

She said the hope had been to take action on the first round of applications at Wednesday’s commissioner’s meeting but said a special meeting — or a delay to the next meeting – will be needed.

She said the extra time is needed to seek clarification on portions of the application where needed and said that they will still be accepting applications.