Ramsey Sullivan
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The Jefferson-County Chamber of Commerce has not been holding their monthly meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, Jan. 5, they resumed their normal meetings, which are held at the Chamber of Commerce, in Monticello.
Jefferson County Property Appraiser Angela Gray was the speaker of the day and came to share about how the CARES-Act Relief Fund impacted the small businesses of Jefferson County. Gray shared that Jefferson County received $2.6 million from the fund, which was sent to the Sheriff’s Office Emergency Management Director. Had Jefferson County not used the $2.6 million they were given, the money could have been sent to other counties in Florida.
After much deliberation and many meetings, the county decided the best way to use the money would be to refund all of the county offices, which used about $600,000 of the money. Then, $2.4 million was put into various other programs.
“The first thing we wanted to do was try to help our local businesses that had suffered loss,” said Gray. “We came up with an application process that we thought was fair, we presented it to the commission and they signed off on it. Then we partnered with the chamber to take all of these applications.”
Gray brought up the fact that many small business owners in Jefferson County did not suffer significant loss during the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the fact that many Jefferson County citizens deliberately spent more money at local businesses. Still, after the application process, economic support was given to businesses, totaling $919,000.
Gray also discussed the 2020 tax roll figures for the city, county and school and the figures from the final tax roll. On the final tax roll, real property made up 76 percent, personal property made up 23 percent and centrally assessed property made up one percent. In the 2019-2020 tax year, Jefferson County received a $727,951 reimbursement from the Amendment One Reimbursement.
After Gray finished her piece, a name was drawn from a hat, and one lucky winner was chosen to win $21, which she then donated back to the Chamber of Commerce.
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