Tarrant County just got $210 million for coronavirus. Here’s how it might help you
Having problems paying your rent or utilities because of the coronavirus pandemic?
Help may soon be on the way.
Tarrant County has received $210 million from the federal government to help cover costs related to COVID-19. And officials are waiting to see what additional money might be coming from the state through the Coronavirus Relief Fund included in the federal “CARES Act.”
If more funding comes from the state, many of the federal money received this week may be used to help food banks, small businesses, and residents with rent or utility assistance, in addition to helping pay for some of the COVID-19 tests, Tarrant County Judge Whitley said Thursday. The money must be spent before the end of the year.
“Tarrant County and the local governments in our county are facing a major public health and safety challenge at the same time we are facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis,” he wrote in a letter to the Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin seeking funding. “Simply put, demand and need for core local government services has increased significantly at the same time we are projecting unprecedented revenue loss.”
This money will “provide us with a life vest while we wait for a rescue ship,” Whitley wrote.
The CARES Act set aside $150 billion to be divided among states and distributed to “units of local governments,” with Texas receiving $11.2 billion. The biggest cities with populations of more than 500,000 — Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso — applied to the state directly and smaller cities have to seek funding from the governor.
The city of Fort Worth also received funding, $158 million, from the CARES Act Wednesday.
City officials said the funds will be used to cover coronavirus related expenses such as personal protection purchases for first responders and essential workers and costs related to the Emergency Operation Center. City workers also are trying to develop programs to help with rental assistance, food needs and business assistance.
More than 100 Texas mayors recently sent a letter to Texas’ congressional delegation asking that all cities, regardless of their population, receive direct funding from the federal government for coronavirus related costs.
Arlington is Texas’ seventh-largest city, but has a population of roughly 398,000, which means it can’t get direct funding.
As for Tarrant County, Whitley said officials will start reviewing where and how this money can be spent.
“We want to be careful,” he said. “We want to make sure other money is coming in from the state. ... But we want to get the money out to the people it needs to help.”
He said he hopes to learn from the state in the coming days how much additional money Tarrant County might receive and when it might arrive.
Whitley mentioned the one stipulation for the federal stimulus money is that it cannot be used to fill revenue shortfalls.
Cities, counties and states are bracing for massive revenue shortfalls, particularly in sales tax revenue that is expected to have drastically dropped since stay at home orders were put in place to try to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
“This money so far has been prohibited from filling budget shortfalls,” Whitley said. “There supposedly may be later money that will do that.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2020 at 4:32 PM.
