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Dear neighbors, As y’all know I was appointed by the Vice Mayor to the Covid-19 Financial Oversight committee. We have been tasked on how to spend the remaining 77 million that the city received in Cares Act Money. Our initial recommendation is due August 3rd. Final recommendation is due no later than November 15th. In order for funds to be eligible they must meet the following a: Grant funds must be used for preparation for, prevention of, and/or response to the coronavirus pandemic; the funds can cover such cost incurred only through December 30, 2020; and the funds cannot cover previously budgeted expenditures.
We as a committee seemed to come to an agreement on our priorities. Since we are running on a time crunch, our first priority was to help Nashvillians in need now. We voted to send before the council a resolution allocating 10 million to go towards rent relief, mortgage relief, and utility relief. This will be a late filed resolution and will be on the August 4th agenda. These funds will be distributed by United Way. The resolution will also include the following. 1. Any organization that receives funds for distribution shall be required to use Charity Tracker in order to prevent duplication of effort as well as allowing for more streamlined reporting to this committee. 2. Any payments for Rent/Mortgage and Utilities shall be made directly to the Mortgage Company/Bank, Landlord, or Utility Company. Payments to individuals is prohibited. 3. Applications for financial support are prohibited from asking for a social security number. 4. Bi-weekly reporting from United Way to this committee is required. The required information includes but is not limited to the following: a. Bi-weekly accounting of any disbursements of funds b. Bi-weekly accounting of any and all fees related to the disbursement of these funds c. Balance of funds remaining from the $10,000,000 allocation d. Demographics of beneficiaries of any funds, including but not limited to Age, Race, Sex and Zip Code This will also allow us to make sure that specific communities who have been disproportionately impacted are receiving support. As a committee, we believed it was imperative to get money in the hands of people now. We did hold off on small business relief. Representative Love, who is also on the committee advised us the state committee would be meeting on the 3rd and planned to allocate more money for business relief. He suggested holding off so as not to duplicate our efforts and evaluate a specific amount for the next meeting which will be this Thursday. We have also received several request from departments and organizations. We did receive a breakdown of what the funds would be used for. I, along with some of my fellow committee members, felt uncomfortable allocating any funds until we are able to ask more questions.
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