On Monday, upon the advice of the county’s independent auditing firm and Attorney Johnny McWilliams, Sunflower County Circuit Clerk Carolyn Hamilton sought and received approval from the Sunflower County Board of Supervisors to open a bank account with the county’s tax ID number for a grant her office received from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which is funded by Mark Zuckerburg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
Hamilton said afterwards, “Senator Derrick Simmons and Representative Otis Anthony II informed me of the COVID-19 grant in an effort to support the critical work of election officials. I applied on September 28 and was awarded $36,618.75 the following day. I was pleasantly surprised to not only receive the grant, but the quick turn-a-round.”
According to Hamilton, this grant is in addition to the allocation from the CARES Act grant that has been assigned to Sunflower County; however, unlike the CARES grant, the CTCL grant does not have as many restrictions.
“We have more flexibility to utilize the funds of the CTCL grant. We are still planning on how to use these funds in areas where we can’t use the CARES fund,” she said.
Hamilton said the money can be used for anything election related, from hiring additional workers, paying additional hazard pay, PPE, improving the polling place, sanitizing the polling place and a lot more. “We have to exhaust all of the funds by December 31, 2020,” she said.
Hamilton said that if any funds were left after the election, they would look at updating election equipment or purchasing additional equipment, such as poll book tablets or ballot on demand systems.
