City of Jacksonville will pay $1,000 to residents most affected by the Coronavirus.
When most people read the CARES Act and searched for economic assistance, they immediately gravitated towards the $1,200 stimulus checks. It’s a big piece of economic stimulus, as it will put thousands of dollars into the hands of millions of Americans, but it’s not the only one.
The bill has a section outlining a $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund that would offer funding to states and local government for use in covering expenses that:
- are necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency with respect to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19);
- were not accounted for in the budget most recently approved as of March 27, 2020 (the date of enactment of the CARES Act) for the State or government; and
- were incurred during the period that begins on March 1, 2020, and ends on December 30, 2020.
The definition of “necessary expenditures” is broad but covers any expenditures that the government incurred in response to the public health emergency. The guidance offers a slew of examples including medical expenses, such as the cost of COVID-19 testing, as well as public health expenses, like the expenses of acquisition and distribution of protective equipment.
It even includes expenses to facilitate compliance with COVID-19 health measures, like isolation, which include expenses for food delivery to residents, distance learning, telework, and the like.
What it cannot cover are items like government revenue shortfalls but the list of eligible expenditures is quite long.
It’s that fourth list of eligible expenditures, which covers “Expenses of actions to facilitate compliance with COVID-19-related public health measures” that is most interesting because that’s likely the section that supports the actions of a local stimulus package in Jacksonville, Florida.
On April 23rd, Mayor Lenny Curry announced that they are offering $1,000 in assistance to residents of Duval County who make less than $75,000 a year and lost at least 25% of their income due to the COVID-19 health crisis. Jacksonville received $160 million from the CARES Act and they plan on using $40 million of it on this local stimulus check.
Many other local governments have been using some of the funding to support assistance programs that don’t directly put cash into people’s pockets but still provides support in these difficult times. For example, Anne Arundel County in Maryland is using $101 million of CARES Act funding to purchase personal protective equipment, food assistance, and other areas of aid.
If other state and local governments follow that of Jacksonville, we could see that the next stimulus check could come from your state or your local government depending on how much funding is available after the grant covers other expenditures.
If you want to know how a eligible unit of local government is defined, we can turn to the Treasury Department’s definition of one as a “county, municipality, town, township, village, parish, borough, or other unit of general government below the State level with a population that exceeds 500,000.” That’s the governmental body you need to contact if you wish to lobby for a local stimulus check.
On a national level, there’s more discussion about future stimulus checks focused around a payroll tax holiday or waiver. It has the support of Art Laffer, an economist and a member of President Trump’s economic recovery task force, and it would result in a small boost to every workers’ paycheck. Those who do not pay payroll taxes would not benefit.
It remains to be seen what the next stimulus check will be but it’s possible it could come from your state!
