John Orona | Staff Writer
Last year, the state set aside more than $1 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds for local jurisdictions that were not directly funded through the CARES Act recovery bill.
Now, the latest reports on how those funds were spent are becoming available.
Nevada County was allocated just over $10 million, more than $4 million of which was spent on staffing for public health and safety employees.
Across the state, costs for staffing additional public health and safety employees accounted for nearly 18% of all expenditures, making it on average the second highest cost driver after facilitating distance learning, which accounted for more than 21% of costs statewide.
By the end of the week high-speed fiber internet will be available to 800 homes in the Peardale area, according to Race Communications spokesman Jim Miller.
In September, the county used $1 million of its $10 million state coronavirus relief fund allocation to expedite connection of 500 customers in Zone 2 of a six-zone, $27 million broadband infrastructure effort along Highway 174.
The overall project, previously run by Bright Fiber and held up for years, will eventually cover 2,000 customers and is expected to be complete by the end of next year. According to Miller, Race expects to announce completion estimates for the rest of the zones in the first quarter of 2021.