Governor Little addresses statewide progress to fight COVID-19
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - Billions of dollars in financial relief is coming our way from the federal government.
That money is slated to reimburse expenses for state, local and tribal governments.
Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf promises to make spending records public so taxpayers know how their money is being spent.
Those records will be posted click here.
During this weekly AARP Telephone Townhall meeting, the governor said federal relief money from the "CARES Act" will be coming to us soon.
Governor Brad Little, says $1.25 billion in federal tax money has come into Idaho.
The money will arrive next week on April 24.
"We intend to efficiently as we can, to get that out to the people in Idaho," said Little.
To hear more of the town hall meeting click the link below.
There are still hurdles and issues for our neighbors who are navigating the unemployment world in Idaho.
Many who are registering with the Idaho unemployment office for the first time say it's more of a challenge than a helpful resource.
In the meeting, Governor Little addressed the massive backlog accumulated by the Idaho unemployment office.
Little says in these past two weeks, they had more applicants for unemployment than in all of 2009 during Idaho's last recession.
"That's the magnitude of the problem over with the department of labor. They are getting caught up, but there's still quite a bit of work to do. There's a couple of other programs that we still don't have final guidance from the US treasury department, but we're getting geared up to do deal with that," Little said.
Little says the state continues to see a very good volume of test results on the commercial side.
Health and Welfare Director Dave Jeppesen announced more than 15,000 people in the state of Idaho have been tested so far.
With a heavy heart, Jeppesen says there have been more than 30 deaths related to the virus.
After briefly sharing his condolences to the families who have lost loved ones from the pandemic, he credits our compliance with the stay-home order as it helped keep those tragic numbers down.
"The numbers are going down as we expected. We knew it would take about two weeks to see the impact of the stay home-order. We have seen a flattening of the curve based on that. As we move forward it's important that all Idahoans continued to practice those basics social distancing, good hand hygiene, and tips that are referenced earlier," said Jeppesen.
The many anticipating relief from the governor's stay at home-order set to end Wednesday, April 15 at 11:59 p.m. may have to wait a bit longer.
The governor is holding a press conference Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. to let us know if it will be extended. You can watch that press conference here on our website.
