The Haines Borough Assembly approved a spending plan that prioritizes businesses for its first installation of CARES Act funding.
The Haines Borough Administration building. (Emily Files)
Most of the initial 2 million dollar payment will go to a support program for local businesses and to backfill the municipal budget. Borough Clerk Alekka Fullerton said the municipality incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses that are outside of the usual budget due to COVID-19.
“Things like buying the decontamination trailer, buying the Conexes, making the signs, renting the electronic signs that we used at the very beginning to remind people of what’s happening,” she said.
The assembly increased the amount of funding to small businesses considerably at its Tuesday meeting. The borough will distribute $850,000 to businesses based on their revenue. Businesses that reported more revenue in 2019 will be eligible for a larger grant sum. The assembly reallocated the money from other categories, like food security.
“It’s not that they didn’t feel like the other categories were important,” Fullerton said.
“I think it was more of a timing issue. So some of those other categories, for instance, food security, is a very important issue. But it was felt that that’s going to become even more of an issue in the fall, or with that we can address with the next payments.”
The remaining federal dollars will go towards funding a local morgue, an ambulance, and utilities relief for individuals. Once the borough spends 80 percent of this money it will qualify for the next installation of federal CARES Act relief money.
