The financial impact of COVID-19 was brought up in Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting. Washington County Treasurer Jeff Garrett said he’s been going over potential places the county will see financial impacts yet this year, “You know it’s no surprise what a tremendous impact it has on all the businesses in the county and those things always seem to trickle back to the government entities eventually. And I’ve kind of identified the three things it could impact the most. That would be the interest on investments; it’s no surprise, how interest rates have tanked over the last month. Between that and our gambling tax, which has been running about $9,000 a week, that we receive the gambling tax from the casino. And then probably the thing that is a little bit harder to get a handle on is the local option sales tax revenue. I think between those three things there’s a potential to maybe see a decrease of $300,000 to $400,000 in revenue in those three areas for the rest of this fiscal year.” He said it could be significant.

Since mid-March, Governor Kim Reynolds has issued many school and business closures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Schools will not reopen their doors this school year and many businesses have been ordered closed except for delivery or curbside pick-up until April 30th.