Kane County Sends $34M In Coronavirus Relief To Communities

KANE COUNTY, IL — After months of pressure from mayors, the Kane County Board approved a plan Tuesday that will give about $34.7 million in coronavirus-relief funding to communities throughout the county, according to a report by the Daily Herald.

Kane County received just under $93 million in funding from the more than $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. Board members signed off on distributing about 45 percent of the county’s funding to municipalities and unincorporated areas, the report states.

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About $28 million is immediately available for municipalities to claim, but county officials are withholding about $7 million as they try to determine exactly how many people live in the Kane County portions of several cities, including Aurora and Elgin, the report states.

Aurora and Elgin are each set to receive about $5.7 million while the county finalizes the funding, about 80 percent of what officials in those cities say they should receive, the Elgin Courier-News reports.

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The Kane County Board opted to distribute its coronavirus-relief funding based on population. That means the county is set to send about $2.5 million to St. Charles, $2 million to Batavia and $1.7 million to Geneva. North Aurora is also set to receive about $1.4 million. Unincorporated areas are set to receive a total of about $7.2 million.

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The funding is meant to help municipalities offset coronavirus-related costs, such as acquiring protective gear and paying overtime, the Courier-News reports. Municipalities must sign intergovernmental agreements with the county and provide documentation for each coronavirus-related expense, the report states.

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Under the plan approved Tuesday, the county is set to keep 55 percent, or about $51 million, of the federal coronavirus-relief funding. The county board allocated about $8 million for the Kane County Health Department to hire a vendor to perform coronavirus contact tracing, the Daily Herald reports. Health department officials had been asking for about $12 million.

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Some of the funding will also go to the Kane County Coroner’s Office to cover its increased costs since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

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