Carbon County will be distributing just under $1.1 million in its second round of COVID-19 block grant funds.

On Thursday, the board of commissioners voted to award an additional 80 entities funds from the $5.79 million the county received through the CARES Act. This round of awards brings the total number of businesses, nonprofits, tourism groups, municipalities and other eligible groups that received funds to 308.

Commissioner Chris Lukasevich spoke at length about the transparency of the process in this grant, saying this is “how county government should operate.”

This round of grants was capped at $23,000 to allow for more entities to receive needed funds in the hopes of recouping some of the lost funds and expenses because of the pandemic.

“Every dollar has been allocated,” Lukasevich said. “Not one penny will go back of our tax dollars to the federal government, and at the end of the day, we have increased the survivability of the entities that we were able to make the award these to and I think that overall we had a positive impact in regards to mitigating COVID-19 here in the county.”

Overall, 82 percent of the funds Carbon County received was distributed, with the remaining 18 percent being spent for county mitigation efforts.

Lukasevich said of the funds distributed, 58 percent went to small businesses, 28 percent went to nonprofits and 70 percent went to tourism.

A full list of awards is available in the COVID-19 block grant portal on www.carboncounty.com.