First responders residing in Florida will get a one-time $1,000 “pandemic bonus,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Wednesday.

“Supporting our law enforcement and first responders has been a top priority for my administration, and it has never been more important than over the last year. As a state, we are grateful for their continued service to our communities,” DeSantis said in a statement. “This one-time bonus is a small token of appreciation, but we can never go far enough to express our gratitude for their selflessness.”

Nearly 174,000 law enforcement officers, fire-service personnel, and emergency health care workers across the Sunshine State are expected to see the additional stimulus payment, the governor said. That includes 49,405 law enforcement officers, 40,732 emergency medical technicians, 35,811 firefighters and 33,185 paramedics.

When speaking at a news conference at the fire department in Temple Terrace, Fla., DeSantis said that the direct payments will arrive “throughout the summer,” though the $208 million set aside for the additional aid has not yet been approved. The Governor’s Office noted that the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity “is working to immediately implement this bonus program, expediting the distribution effort.”

The state-level stimulus payment for first responders comes as congressional Democrats are pushing for a fourth stimulus check to be included in President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure and jobs bill, an initiative that has little bipartisan support. Several key Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Chris Coons (Del.), have advocated for working with Republicans on passing the infrastructure bill, and if members of the GOP are involved in infrastructure negotiations, it’s unlikely that additional direct payments will be included in the final version of the package. Instead, Republicans have argued that the legislation should be targeted toward traditional infrastructure spending.

Similar to DeSantis’s stimulus initiative, both California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) have provided certain residents with additional one-time payments. In California, more than 5.7 million people qualify for Newsom’s $600 direct payments, which includes families that earned less than $30,000 last year and received California’s earned income tax credit for 2020. Also seeing the direct payment are households with individual tax identification numbers and an income below $75,000, households in the CalWORKs program—a program that provides cash aid and services to eligible families with children—recipients of Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) and recipients of aid through the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.

And undocumented immigrant families who did not qualify for the federal aid from the previous rescue packages can receive checks of up to $1,200 if they meet the earned income tax credit qualifications.

In Maryland, Hogan started offering checks of $300 per individual or $500 per family. Nearly 425,000 Marylanders are eligible for the payments under the RELIEF Act, a measure that the governor passed in February.

Rachel Bucchino is a reporter at the National Interest. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, U.S. News & World Report, and The Hill.

Image: Reuters.