BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter

Los Alamos County received 53 applications from individuals and 62 applications from businesses for Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act prior to the Sept. 25, County Manager Harry Burgess told County Councilors Tuesday evening.

The CARES Act funding is received from the federal government and disbursed through the State Department of Finance Administration. Los Alamos County was awarded $656,250 under an emergency grant to local governments and another $1,065,000 for small businesses.

Burgess told Council a meeting has already been held with regard to the individual applications and two additional meetings have been scheduled to begin going through the businesses. He said separate groups are conducting the reviews along with outside experts.

Burgess said the total ask for the individuals program was about $190,000. The County anticipates possibly a second round for applications and is already looking at some mechanisms for implementing it.

“For the business side of the house we received just over $1 million and the requests total approximately $2.7 million so we will be looking at that. We do not have enough money obviously to fund 100 percent of those requests,” he said.

Burgess said he did not have an exact timeline for distributing the funds, noting that for example that additional information is needed for some 30 applications.

“We’re trying not to reject but to consider all of the applications and going through a review process and asking some more information right now. Once we do get through that review and have determined the awards, there is also the rigmarole of actually setting up each of these applicants as a vendor in our system so that we can actually cut a check to them and have the appropriate records – that alone for over 120 applications takes several days. Just understand we’re trying to go as quickly as possible but there will be some time necessary to get through the process,” he said.