DOTHAN, Ala. — The city of Dothan has continued to prosper off of the CARES Act funding they received in the middle of 2020.
“You know the reimbursement through the cares act for the payroll and the finance portion of it was obviously instrumental in helping us continue our operations,” Dothan Police Chief Steven Parrish said.
Payroll was just one of the many items that was helped by the funding and despite receiving the money in 2020, the city is still moving forward and battling the problems created by the COVID-19 disease.
“You know I think everyone is still more conscious and it’s more of a reactive response to put on your mask or to sanitize your hands when you get back in a car off of a call,” Parrish said. “And I think that’s becoming more of a responsive thing on the part of the officers they’re doing it.”
Now that the COVID-19 vaccine is available to first responders, many have taken the opportunity, which also helps the city continue to work and move forward.
Besides safety employees, the city employees have taken extra time and precautions since the pandemic started to keep themselves and others safe and could not have done most of that without the help of the cares act funding.
“At least for the first half of 2021 we anticipate seeing the same type of response,” Dothan Community Relations Director Vincent Vincent said. “We will still have city employees that are working on cleaning and we’ll still have our first responders that are out there dealing with some of these COVID cases so we see that going forward.”
The city has since received their cares reimbursement which equaled about 3.2 million dollars and that will help continue to buy more safety and sanitary equipment.
