WAYNE COUNTY: County Receives CARES Funding for Businesses, Non-Profits & More

By Press release submission

Jul 17, 2020

Wayne County issued the following announcement on July 16.

Wayne County received more than $4.6 million in federal CARES funding through the PA Department of Community & Economic Development.

The funding is strictly for support of COVID-19 related activities such as offseting the cost of direct county response; assisting businesses and municipalities; providing behvioral health and substance use disorder treatment services; funding non-profit assistance, and deploying broadband to unserved or under-served areas.

Each of these areas of allowed expenditure line items has supporting guideline and restrictions and/or suggested uses to be reviewed by each County to determine the best and most effective use of the funds. All monies received are required to be allocated by the county by December 30, 2020.

Wayne County set a preliminary budget as follows:

County Direct Response/Administration	$592,753
Broadband Deployment	$1,200,000
Behavioral Health/Substance Use Treatment	$200,000
Small Business, Tourism Busines and Non-Profit grant/allocations	$2,645,000

These budget categories and allocations will be fluid, based on actual county expenditures and broadband project quotes. The county will work with the Wayne Economic Development Corporation, the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau, Chamber of the Northern Poconos, Downtown Hawley Partnership and Greater Honesdale Partnership to support our business community and non-profit organizations.

An application process for Wayne County-based businesses and non-profits is being created and will be announced shortly. On Thursday, the Commissioners hired Hailstone Economic, a community, business, and real estate development consulting firm based in Scarnton, to assist with the project. Part of that work, said Commissioner Chairman Brian Smith, will involve assessing what, if any, other funding streams my be available to individual businesses in order to achieve the most efficient use of the CARES Act dollars available to Wayne County.

The firm will also be designing and hosting the online applications, with links to be made available at www.WayneCountyPA.gov, www.WayneTomorrow.com and on other partner agency websites.

Original source can be found here.