Kenai City Manager Paul Ostrander offered details to KSRM on how the city of Kenai plans to spend their allotted Federal CARES Act funding.
The City Manager discussed how the federally allocated money made its way to Kenai: “Governor Dunleavy put together a plan to allocate those funds and $568 million went to local municipalities. So, that’s all of the municipalities and the boroughs in the state. For example, the Kenai Peninsula Borough received $37 million. The city of Kenai received $7.7 million. The city of Soldotna received a similar amount. So, every municipality received these funds.”
He added that the intent of the money was very clear from the start: “The guidance that was provided, the original intent of the CARES Act was to get thsi money out quickly, to get it out to benefit the small businesses, non-profits, and individuals in your communities. So, the city of Kenai, rather than trying to focus on how or why we can get this money to fill the city coffers, really took it immediately and said we need to follow the intent of the CARES Act and get this money out quickly, we need to benefit those folks who have been impacted by COVID-19. As soon as we got notice of the amount of our grant, we took an ordinance to the council – we introduced it and heard it in one meeting. That’s not something we typically do. In two weeks, we put together this program that is intended to provide grants for small businesses and non-profits in the city of Kenai.”
How do folks qualify for money? Larry Persily offered details: “Well, any business that has a physical location in the city of Kenai and any non-profit that operates and provides services in Kenai even if the non-profit office may be across the street from the border – that’s the main criteria, not profits or are they an IRS 501 non-profit, or other…clearly they qualify as a non-profit that provides community services.
For more details, visit the City of Kenai’s website.