Utah has until Dec. 31 to spend more than $200 million in CARES Act funds

Utah received over $934 million when the federal government passed the initial CARES Act for coronavirus relief in March. By the end of November, the state still has about $215 million of that money left — and needs to spend it by the end of the year or lose it. Those numbers come from Phil Dean, interim executive director of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget.

Dean said the CARES Act stipulated that relief money be spent by the end of the calendar year. Utah officials are working to move the funds to where they’re needed and make sure they don’t have to return money to the federal government.

The Office of Management and Budget is joined by the Utah Department of Health, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Workforce Services, the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and other agencies in finding needs to match the funds.