More CARES money may be on way

Local governments that were hit financially by the coronavirus pandemic moved closer to getting more federal relief thanks to a unanimous vote Wednesday by the Ohio Senate.

Senate Bill 357 would release the remaining $650 million of the $1.2 billion given to the state under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. It now heads to the Ohio House, which is next scheduled to meet on Sept. 17.

“This legislation ensures that local communities across Ohio will have access to critical funds needed to combat the pandemic and recover from its effects," Senate President Larry Obhof, RMedina, said in a statement. "I encourage the Ohio House of Representatives to act quickly on this bill so these funds can make it to the front lines as soon as possible."

The money has to be spent by qualifying governments by the end of the year.

The bill was the third installment of COVID-19 funding. State lawmakers approved $350 million in June, and the state Controlling Board released $175 million in late August.

Sen. Matt Dolan, R-chagrin Falls, said the reason the first bill held back the majority of the money was because federal law prohibited local governments from using the money to backfill their budgets. A city could install

Plexiglas barriers or hand-sanitizing stations, but it couldn’t pay for a police officer with those funds.

He had hoped Congress would expand the defintion of a COVID-19 expense, but “the guidelines are incredibly unclear.”

There appears to be some wiggle room when it comes to public safety and first responders, but Dolan said, “I don’t believe jurisdictions think they can just put that money directly into their safety force line item.”

He said he understood why the CARES Act was written that way. Congress didn’t want cities and counties applying the money to PRE-COVID expenses. But he thought it was too restrictive.

“I am supportive of the idea that revenue loss is a Covid-related expense,”

Dolan said.

Ohio’s cities are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of losses because they rely heavily on income taxes for their budgets.

This last round of federal dollars excluded six jurisdictions with populations over 500,000 because they qualified for direct federal payments. They are the city of Columbus as well as Cuyahoga, Franklin, Hamilton, Montgomery and Summit counties. Smaller local governments within those counties still were eligible.

The Senate plan distributes the $650 million based on the population of each eligible subdivision. astaver@dispatch.com @annastaver