Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Quay County government spent all its $152,000 allotment in federal CARES Act funds to cover expenses related to the COVID-19 pandemic before last week’s deadline.
Meanwhile, the county earlier last month helped divvy out more than $372,000 in those federal funds to 16 area businesses for their coronavirus-related expenses.
County manager Richard Primrose said the county has submitted its last of three reimbursement applications for the county’s COVID-19 expenses due Dec. 30. The county received $152,550 in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act funds, plus another $372,750 in aid for businesses from the same source, earlier this fall.
“We spent every penny that we received,” he said Thursday.
Primrose said four main expenses were incurred by the county in its $152,000 allotment.
First was buying personal protective equipment not only for those in county government, but for municipalities that included Tucumcari, House, San Jon and Logan.
Quay County also bought a vehicle for emergency management coordinator Daniel Zamora so he could pick up PPE supplies from Las Vegas and deliver them to those municipalities.
Another reimbursable expense was wages for county employees temporarily quarantined by the virus. Primrose said the CARES Act allowed up to 80 hours of pay for employees unable to work because they’d been exposed to the virus.
Finally, the county purchased five disinfectant fogger machines to use in county buildings and vehicles.
“Our (COVID-19) cases have been less because maintenance has been disinfecting the courthouse every day,” Primrose said. “We started this before we got the funding because we thought it was critical.”
As for business grants, Primrose said the county received 18 applications, and 16 received funding after a committee determined they met the criteria.
He said the county worked with the City of Tucumcari, which received about $28,000 in CARES Act funding, to proportionally split the grants to applicants that operated in the city. All told, the county and city had $400,706 in business aid available.
No one entity received more than $42,658. Primrose said a few applicants saw their grants pared down because they asked for more money than was available.
Those entities and the money they received from the county for COVID-related expenses:
• Mountain View Bowl, $40,854.74
• BPO Elks Lodge 1172, $30,461.08
• Tucumcari Hospitality LLC, $8,194.23
• BMB Inc., $20,728.48
• KSK Tucumcari LLC, $31,107.97
• American Legion Post 778, $19,716.51
• Haney & Haney LLC, $42,658.29
• Dinghy Dick’s Marine, $10,000
• Outsource Ventures LLC, $17,309.51
• Clarice L. Strong, $7,670.33
• Sumant Hospitality LLC, $17,244.53
• Janesh LLC, $24,247.74
• Delfido Gonzales VFW Post 2528, $4,739.33
• Loretta’s Burrito Hut LLC, $42,658.29
• DFL Properties, $17,502.40
• Becks Boats LLC, $37,656.57
Those eligible were businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees and annual revenue of less than $2 million before the pandemic.
Expenses eligible for reimbursement included business redesign, non-owner employee payroll, rent, scheduled mortgage payments, insurance, utilities and marketing incurred from March 1 to Oct. 1. Those who received federal Payroll Protection Program assistance could not receive a grant for the same expenses covered by the PPP loan.
“I think it went really well,” Primrose said of the overall program. “It was really nice to be able to reimburse for the additional expenses of COVID and help our our local businesses. It’s really helped out a bunch.”