On March 27, 2020, the President signed into law the U.S. government’s Phase 3 aid package to provide relief due to the novel coronavirus (“COVID-19”) through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”). The CARES Act authorizes approximately $2 trillion in federal stimulus funds to combat the crisis. This includes a number of programs to address the issues that states and local governments are facing as they work to protect their communities during this challenging time.
The core of the CARES Act’s aid to state and local governments is the $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund. This money is to be distributed to state, tribal and local governments with populations exceeding 500,000 to cover necessary expenditures related to COVID-19 that were not accounted for in that government’s budget and are incurred between March 1 and December 31, 2021. The state is the only entity with a population above 500,000 in Idaho, so it is acting as the fund distributor. Idaho received $1.25 billion of the relief fund.