HERMANN — Just over $500,000 worth of Gasconade County’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocation was approved Thursday morning by the County Commission.

That leaves about $900,000 of the county’s first $1.4-million allocation yet to be decided. The second installment of another $1.4 million is scheduled to arrive this month, making a total of $2.8 million earmarked for Gasconade County.

Approval of the first batch of requests for ARPA money came during the weekly County Commission meeting that was held  at the offices of Meramec Regional Planning Commission (MRPC), which is administering the county’s ARPA funding.

At last report, MRPC had about 35 applications awaiting action.

Presiding Commissioner Larry Miskel, R-Hermann, said the requests that were approved were from a variety of organizations, including businesses and non-profit groups.

“There doesn’t seem to be any trends at all” regarding the proposed uses of the money, Miskel said.

He noted that some applications from businesses were put on hold until more information can be obtained about the funding requests.

Applications for a share of the funds will continue to be taken from businesses and organizations, Miskel said. Indeed, the County Commission Thursday morning agreed to review the requests every three months. The next review will be in August.

County administrators in recent weeks lifted the initial limit of $50,000 per application. Now, a business or organization can can request as much as it needs, although the amount awarded in the form of a grant will be decided by the County Commission.

“I know of one or maybe two that want to apply for a couple hundred grand,” Miskel said.

The presiding commissioner said Thursday morning’s session dealt exclusively with the ARPA requests; no other county business was taken up. One thing was decided, Miskel said. The county Commission decided not to use any of its ARPA dollars for the infrastructure projects of the county’s municipalities.

Applications will continue to be taken by MRPC. While county officials want to set aside some of the ARPA money for county government projects — right now $350,000 has been tagged as the amount for county projects — it’s not known exactly what projects will be financed with the money; nor do county officials have any indication of the level of interest among businesses and other groups for some of the money.

As the multi-year process moves along — the county has until 2026 to actually spend the $2.8 million — Miskel is hoping more organizations will file an application for some of the funds.

“I hope that by the end of this, we’ll be like we were with the first stimulus (CARES Act) — with a zero dollar balance,” Miskel said.