Seward County has worked diligently to prepare plans for spending $6,419,281.00 in
Coronavirus Relief Funds (“CRF”), recovery funds that have been made available to the County
from the State of Kansas through the Federal CARES Act. The County engaged an outside
consultant to help navigate the process, conducted multiple needs assessments, and held
numerous interviews with key leaders throughout the community. These inputs helped the
County to create a Reimbursement Report and Direct Aid Spending Plan that was submitted to
the State of Kansas for approval on August 15, 2020. This was a critical first step as those
documents need to be approved before dollars can be transferred to agencies and programs can
be launched. The Reimbursement Report was for repayment of expenditures which were
incurred by governmental entities and non-profits from March 1, 2020 through July 31, 2020 in
response to the coronavirus pandemic. Reimbursements to public educational and municipal
entities were required by the State of Kansas as a condition of receiving CRF funds.
Within the Direct Aid Spending Plan, there are three main programs that the county designed to
support the community. They include:
• COVID-19 Agency Operational Relief Grants and Local Government Partnership
Program: This program is intended to meet the needs of the County’s small businesses,
organizations, and non-profit organizations. This program provides grants to cover
eligible COVID-19 expenditures made or planned through year end, including costs
associated with operating losses, costs of “business interruptions and disruptions” caused
by closures, and expenses related to public health actions.
This program also supports local governments such as cities, higher education institutions
and the school districts with reimbursements and grants to address COVID-19 incurred
expenses and necessary future expenditures.
• COVID-19 Response and Recovery Grants: These grants are designed to help nonprofits,
community organizations, and healthcare providers to respond to and mitigate the impact
of COVID-19 and propose recovery initiatives that are right-sized for targeted relief of
the communities served. There are three identified set asides for Connectivity,
Workforce Development and Childcare to target funding that can help close these critical
gaps.
• COVID-19 Household Emergency Relief Program: This program will provide eligible
households with a one-time subsidy that will be used to cover the difference between the
household’s rent or mortgage and/or utilities burden on March 1, 2020 and the increase in
household burden for the months the household is seeking assistance as a result of job
loss, reduction in work hours, or other demonstrable income hardship caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Payments for this one-time subsidy will be made by the County on
behalf of the qualified household.
These programs will be launched shortly after the approval of the County’s submission to the
State of Kansas. The state has committed to having their review completed by September 15,
2020, but the County is hopeful approval will be sooner than that.
If you have any questions regarding these programs, please feel free to reach out to the county at
cares@sewardcountyks.org.
