KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Help is on the way for some Kansas Citians still reeling amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Kansas City, Missouri, expects to receive $18,882,946 in CARES Act funding from Jackson County this week after a nearly four-month process.
“We were asked to submit further documentation, it was rejected," Mayor Quinton Lucas said. "Then we were asked to submit further documentation. I hope this is finally the one that helps us get through."
KCMO submitted three drafts for proposals to Jackson County, with the original goal of acquiring $56.4 million in aid.
“Anytime you’re spending federal money, you just need a document that shows, 'Here’s how we’re spending it. Here’s why we need it,'” Jackson County Administrator Troy Schulte said.
Kansas City's original requests were too vague, according to Schulte, and wouldn’t withstand federal audit. He also said the county slashed the funding significantly due to other outstanding projects with higher priority inside Jackson County.
“If they’re going to buy PPE for firefighters, how many pieces of equipment do they estimate for the departments? It’s just an estimate,” he said. “We want to make sure we do as much as we can to comply with the rules and regulations."
Schulte said they chose "to not just give it [all] to the cities."
"We have a lot of projects that are countywide in nature," he said, "and that’s what we’ve tried to do is put those resources get to the county as a whole, not individual cities."
The full funding, according to Lucas, would allow the city to address ongoing economic shortfalls, aid the area’s homeless population and close gaps in funding throughout the public safety sector.
“There’s a lot that you can do with $35 million more that the people of KC won’t be receiving,” Lucas said.
Kansas City currently is "spending down reserves that we don’t really have," according to Lucas.
"So we’re writing a lot of checks, some of which we need some money to come in so we can make sure we give them cash," he said.
According to county records, Jackson County has dispersed $6.7 million of the nearly $122 million given to the county through the CARES Act.
KCMO could receive it’s $18.8 million as early as Thursday, pending KCMO finance and city committee oversight.
