$19 billion in coronavirus funding sent to Nevada

The governor’s finance office told lawmakers Friday that Nevada has received $19 billion in coronavirus aid.

But the state itself got just $836 million of that total. The vast majority of the money went directly to a total of more than 90 programs including $6.8 billion in paycheck protection funding that went directly to businesses and individuals.

More money went straight to local governments, education, childcare, public safety, food assistance, welfare and other uses.

Finance Director Susan Brown said the treasury still has $614 million. She said $222 million has been spent.

Asked whether the state will be able to get all the money out the door by Dec. 30 — the deadline to either spend or lose it — she said they should be able to do so but if they can’t, the money can be put into the unemployment trust fund. That fund is nearly depleted after spending more than $1.8 billion.

The alternative would be to borrow from the federal government to continue paying unemployment benefits. The problem with that is the federal government charges a very high interest rate on those loans — upward of 7 percent.

Most recently, she said the state used $22 million in CARES Act money to leverage $72 million more in federal virus funding.

She said the state is still working to get full funding to cover the Nevada National Guard’s costs through the end of the year. Until now, the federal government has been paying 100 percent of the guard’s costs. The federal government this week denied Nevada’s application to pay the additional $7 million that is expected to cost.

More than $295 million went directly to Clark County and $119 million to Las Vegas. Those two entities qualified for a direct grant because they are each home to more than 500,000 people.

Communities in the rest of the state got funding from the state according to a formula based on population. Since the formula is population based, Reno received the largest amount outside of Clark County, $23.3 million, followed by $10.1 million to Washoe County and $9.6 million to Sparks.

Carson City received $5.1 million and, like all the other local entities, can apply for an additional grant the same size as thee first one.