Another round of provincial funding is being doled out to help communities deal with ongoing COVID-related operational costs.
Officials say the funding will be prioritized to help municipalities hardest hit by COVID-19 at the start of 2021.
The municipality of Chatham-Kent will be receiving $1,459,000 of Safe Restart Funding, however CAO Don Shropshire says so far they haven’t received any guidance on how the money should be put to use.
The provincial announcement says the funds can be used to address the unique needs of each community, based on COVID-19 related operating pressures.
In the first phase of funding in 2020, Shropshire says there was a bit of flexibility.
“We had additional costs, things like additional costs for PPE, we had additional costs for some training, in some cases we had to modify some of our operational centres so people could maintain social distancing,” Shropshire says. “There was also some money applied last year for some of the shortfalls in revenue.”
In all, the government is spending $500-million to be spread around 444 municipalities in the province.
