Beshear proposes $340 million COVID relief package for small businesses, unemployed
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has proposed the state pay $220 million to small businesses financially impacted by COVID-19 — relief he touted Thursday night in his budget address as the “single-largest aid package in a generation.”
Under the Better Kentucky Small Business Relief Fund, the state would make direct payments to small businesses that have suffered under the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions Beshear put in place to curb spread of the virus. In November, Beshear used $40 million in CARES Act money to assist struggling bars and restaurants who were earning less than 50 percent of their normal sales.
The fund will “allow direct payments to small businesses that have been harmed, to help them pay some expenses [and get] through the coming months,” Beshear said.
The proposal is part of a separate $340 million special appropriations bill attached to the governor’s budget, which he presented Thursday night at his State of the Commonwealth address. The speech was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but Beshear postponed it after pro-Trump rioters stormed the United States Capitol and attempted to disrupt certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Beshear’ also wants to use $48 million in CARES Act money to pay close to 24,000 Kentuckians $1,000. The single-payment checks would go to people who filed and qualify for unemployment benefits more than two months ago, but who have yet to receive any money and are still unemployed. The bill also would use $20 million in CARES Act money to help small non-profit organizations.
He’s additionally proposing one-time supplement payments of $400 to Kentuckians whose unemployment benefits were less than $176 a week, and who missed out on the extra $400 from the Federal Emergency Management System’s lost wages assistance program that Kentucky doled out in the summer.
In addition, close to $100 million in federal relief money would be used to pay back some of the state’s unemployment insurance loan.
Beshear’s budget recommends the state invest $47.5 million to replace Kentucky’s ailing unemployment insurance system and $9.5 million over the next two years to hire 90 additional staff at the state’s 12 unemployment officers. Since the start of the pandemic, the Beshear administration has been plagued by problems with the outdated system. Over the summer, Beshear’s office began paying an outside firm to help the state process hundreds of thousands of outstanding claims, many of which had been filed months earlier. More than a million claims were filed in 2020 — a volume that, compared to earlier years, ballooned by 1,300 percent, Beshear said.
Drafted in response to what he has characterized as lacking aid packages passed by Congress to alleviate financial strain brought on by the pandemic, Beshear called on the General Assembly to fast-track the bill in the coming days in order to provide swift relief.
“We want to get that out the door almost immediately,” he said.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 7:22 PM.
