Kansas is moving to provide $50 million in relief to businesses such as bars, gyms and hair salons that were forced by state or local officials to shut down or restrict their operations during the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, the Associated Press reported. The Republican-controlled legislature yesterday approved a bill setting up the new program, sending it to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on lawmakers’ last scheduled day in session this year. The measure is aimed at small businesses and would allow them to receive up to $5,000 for 2020 and 2021 if state and local officials imposed COVID-19 restrictions, though many were lifted by the summer of 2020. The proposal had strong bipartisan support, clearing the Senate, 35-0, and the House, 120-1, but the short debates included a few notes of bitterness. A key Republican senator criticized Kelly over actions she took two years ago to check the spread of COVID-19, and the House’s top Democrat argued that lawmakers should be doing more for working-class families. Republicans have pushed for a relief program since the start of 2021, partly in response to a still-pending lawsuit in Sedgwick County filed in December 2020 by a Wichita fitness studio and its owner. Kelly last year vetoed a measure setting aside hundreds of millions of federal coronavirus relief dollars for businesses, saying it was “well-intentioned” but likely violated federal law. The new, smaller program would be financed with federal funds as well.
