Centralia, Like Tenino, Adopts ‘Scrip’ Program

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The Centralia City Council approved the adoption of the Centralia Cares Scrip program at its meeting on Tuesday evening in an effort to alleviate some of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens.

The city is allocating $50,000 for the scrip program, which is coming out of the $515,100 in CARES Act funding from the Washington Department of Commerce to assist with lessening the impacts of  COVID-19.

The scrip program, which is basically the creation of the city’s own form of currency, is aiming to provide economic relief to citizens and businesses who can prove economic hardship as a direct result of the COVID-19 emergency, according to the program description.

“As part of the CARES funding, we had discussed carving out a piece of that — $50,000 — and entering into a scrip program. The goal here is to get the money in the hands of the people who need it — not only the residents but also the businesses here in Centralia,” said Centralia City Manager Rob Hill.

“We kind of modeled it after the program up in Tenino. Councilor (Kelly) Smith Johnson brought this forward and has been very helpful in helping us to package this in such a way that we think it could work here,” Hill said.

Hill said that one of the concerns was that the program was going to take up a lot of staff time, but said that since the city’s finance director, Bret Brodersen, has served on the city council in Tenino he has experience with the idea.

The Centralia Cares Scrip will be in denominations of $25, with no cash value, and can be redeemed at participating businesses within the Centralia city limits until Sept. 30 of this year.

In order to be awarded scrip as a citizen, the individual must reside within the city limits and must either be enrolled in the senior discount program at the City of Centralia Utilities or have income levels at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level based on family size. 

Applicants could be granted anywhere from $100 to $250 in scrip based upon their income level and family size. The program is being run on a first-come, first-serve basis and each applicant must be approved by the city’s finance department’s staff.



At the conclusion of the scrip program, businesses that had agreed to participate in the program may redeem the collected scrip with the city.

Participating businesses may submit a “COVID-19 Recovery Grant Reimbursement Request” twice each month of the scrip program in order to receive reimbursement from the city for collected scrip.

Scrip cannot be used to purchase alcoholic beverages, cannabis products, tobacco products, firearms or ammunition. 

The city will discontinue the program on Sept. 30 or when the $50,000 in funds have been exhausted. The council discussed the option of possibly increasing the funding of the scrip program in the future if they feel it would benefit the city.

To get more information on the Centralia Cares Scrip program or to apply to receive the scrip, citizens and businesses interested in participating in the program should contact the Centralia’s finance department at 360-330-7659.

The rest of the CARES Act funding, $465,100, is being put toward a Centralia Cares Response Proposal program that is currently taking applications from non-profit organizations. The application asks the organization to propose how they plan to use the money in direct response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The minimum amount of funds the organizations can apply for is $50,000.

An application developed by city staff and is available on the City of Centralia’s website — www.cityofcentralia.com/Page.asp?NavID=950.

The deadline for an organization to submit a proposal is July 20, the council will review the proposals on July 28 and the chosen organizations will need to spend the funds and seek reimbursement from the city by Oct. 15.