By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
Barton County is set this week to begin receiving money from the Strengthening People And Revitalizing Kansas (SPARK) proposal to distribute COVID-19 relief funds.
The county will receive more than $5.2 million to address the health and economic challenges inflicted by coronavirus.
Barton County Administrator Phil Hathcock says the county is encouraged to share the money with other local governments, school districts and agencies who can show a need.
"We have been working for approximately a month to come up with formulas to share the funding with cities and school districts," said Hathcock. "How they will be spent is what makes me a little bit nervous."
Hathcock's nervousness comes with the strict requirements that are part of the federal grant funding and the knowledge that the county would be on the hook for expenditures that are not approved.
"For example, if a city goes out an buys a truck for their street department and the state said that is not a COVID-19 related expense and will not be approved," Hathcock said. "The state would say, 'Barton County you need to give the money back.' They do not tell the city to pay back the money, they tell Barton County."
Barton County Commissioners last week passed a resolution that allowed the county to begin the process of strategically providing communities within the county the resources needed to both mitigate the spread of the virus and invest in long-term economic recovery.