BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Gov. John Bel Edwards has signed a Republican-crafted plan to spend $300 million in federal coronavirus aid to help small businesses recover from the outbreak.

The dollars come from direct federal aid allocated to Louisiana by Congress to respond to the COVID-19 disease.

Edwards intended to steer about $811 million of federal assistance to local government agencies to reimburse them for virus-related expenses. Republican state lawmakers chose to divvy that money up differently.

They carved out $300 million for small business grants and used the remaining $511 million for municipalities.

The governor announced Monday that he signed the measure. Treasurer John Schroder will manage the business grant program.