Westmoreland County to award additional pandemic grants

Westmoreland County will award a final round of covid-relief grants next week to small businesses, while nonprofit agencies and local volunteer fire departments will receive awards later this month.

Commissioners on Thursday increased grants handed out last week to Penn and Washington townships to cover coronavirus-related costs incurred by their police departments. Penn Township received an additional $21,000 and Washington Township was given another $25,000. As a result, both municipalities received maximum grants of $30,000.

Nearly $810,000 in grants were doled out last week to 40 municipalities and one government agency from a pool of $31.5 million in federal funds allocated by the state for coronavirus relief.

“There was an email exchange that was lost in translation, and once we got clarification we learned that police department costs were eligible for reimbursement, so we awarded these municipalities the full grant amount,” said Commissioner Sean Kertes.

Officials have awarded a series of covid-relief grants this fall, including $5.5 million to 260 small businesses and 77 nonprofits. Commissioners last month unexpectedly awarded a $5 million grant to Excela Health to help cover the hospital system’s losses attributed to the coronavirus.

Another $2 million was set aside for a second round of small businesses grants. Those will be awarded next week, commissioners said.

Meanwhile, commissioners announced the county will also hand out another $1 million in grants to local nonprofit agencies. The county has been soliciting applications for several weeks and said it will award those funds on a first-come, first-serve basis. Requests for about two-thirds of the available cash have been fielded.

Commissioners also will award grants of up to $25,000 to volunteer fire departments. Applications are still being accepted.

“We are very appreciative of what our fire companies have done. Their funding relies on fundraisers, and because of the pandemic they haven’t been have able to have fish fries and other events,” said Commissioner Gina Cerilli.

The county’s 118 volunteer fire departments were left out of the initial grant awards. Money for the fire companies will be diverted from about $9 million in CARES Act funds the commissioners banked to pay overtime and bonuses to the county government’s essential workers.