Are you a NC parent who didn’t get a $335 check? You might have another chance in 2021
For North Carolina parents who qualified for but didn’t get the $335 checks from the state this fall to offset remote learning expenses for their children, there still might be a chance to get the money.
There is $62 million left over from the money allocated in the General Assembly’s last COVID-19 relief package passed in early September and signed into law by Gov. Roy Cooper. The state allocated funding from the federal CARES Act, which required it be spent by Dec. 30.
Checks for $335 went out to more than 1 million parents in North Carolina, starting in October, who claimed a dependent child on their previous year’s taxes and lived in the state for all of 2019. Those parents who didn’t make enough money to file taxes and to get the checks automatically could fill out an application to the Department of Revenue. That deadline to apply was in October at first, then extended to early December after a lawsuit.
Even so, there are still parents who did not apply in time. The way the funding worked, any federal money not spent by Dec. 30 would go back to the federal government. That’s almost what happened with $30 million in broadband funding, but officials were able to use it by swapping it for other state spending.
But that still leaves the unspent Extra Credit Grants.
That would have been the end of it except for Congress’ latest COVID-19 relief, which extended the CARES Act funding spending deadline into 2021.
Enter the same state lawmakers who planned the original grants.
Sen. Brent Jackson, a Sampson County Republican and chair of the powerful Senate appropriations committee, told The News & Observer in a phone interview on Wednesday that he plans to propose legislation to extend that Extra Credit Grant application deadline even more.
Jackson said he plans to introduce the proposal early in the session, calling it a “top priority.” Lawmakers return Jan. 13 for a day to plan out the coming session schedule, then are expected to return two weeks later on Jan. 27 to get down to business. Jackson said he would propose giving people a few months’ more time to apply if they qualified and hadn’t applied already. The Department of Revenue issues the checks.
“It’s only fair to give them the opportunity to apply for it,” Jackson said about the parents who missed out this fall.
It looks like spending the rest of that $62 million on checks for parents who didn’t apply for the grants already could go through later this winter.
The relief package passed in September allowed the Cooper administration some spending flexibility after Nov. 20 to use funds that would expire by the original Dec. 30 CARES Act spending deadline. One example of shifting funding to get it allotted in time is the $30 million for broadband internet expansion grants. That funding was green-lighted in December after negotiations between lawmakers and the Cooper administration, The N&O previously reported.
The Office of State Budget and Management, which is part of the administration, has been sending legislative leaders weekly updates on spending those allotments.
“The administration continues to review the latest federal stimulus and impacts of the deadline extension for CRF funds and will continue to work with the legislature to ensure these funds are used to help North Carolinians,” Cooper’s press secretary Dory MacMillan told The News & Observer in an email Thursday. “There are no additional reallocations of CRF funds planned at this time,” she said.
That leaves the door open to the new bill in the coming weeks, and then relief to more parents in North Carolina.
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This story was originally published December 31, 2020 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Are you a NC parent who didn’t get a $335 check? You might have another chance in 2021."