County has many options to consider as it maps out use of ARPA funding

Infrastructure, premium pay for essential workers seemed to attract Commission’s interest

By Buck Collier, Special Correspondent
Posted 9/15/21

HERMANN — A plethora of possibilities are in front of the Gasconade County Commission as it begins considering how to use the $2.8 million the county will receive through the American Rescue …

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County has many options to consider as it maps out use of ARPA funding

Infrastructure, premium pay for essential workers seemed to attract Commission’s interest

Posted

HERMANN — A plethora of possibilities are in front of the Gasconade County Commission as it begins considering how to use the $2.8 million the county will receive through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) aimed at rebooting the local economy damaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

Half of the county’s allotment — slightly more than $1.4 million — is in the bank. The second installment is set to arrive next year. The Commission has until Jan. 1, 2023, to formally submit its plan for the money’s use and until the end of 2024 to have the funds obligated; that is, to have contracts in place for the work. The deadline for having the money actually spent is the end of 2026.

Earlier in the year, as commissioners were awaiting more-detailed information about the use of ARPA funds, there seemed to be a consensus among them that a priority use should be infrastructure improvements; although, they acknowledged that infrastructure is a wide-ranging topic that would need significant discussion as to specific projects.

The administrators’ interest also was sparked when they learned that premium pay for essential workers was going to be a legitimate use of some of the money. Their first thoughts were of the employees in the courthouse who worked through the height of the initial wave of the pandemic. They also mentioned emergency service workers as possible recipients of premium pay, as well as employees of the Sheriff’s Department and Road Department.

However the money gets doled out, a formal plan could be some time away. County officials here are likely to take the same approach as many of their counterparts throughout Missouri and, specifically, the Meramec Region: Go slowly.

Indeed, at last week’s Commission session at Owensville City Hall, Kelly Sink of Meramec Regional Planning Commission — the agency that will administer the ARPA funds, as it did the $1.7-million CARES Act money — asked administrators if they had some priority projects in mind.

“Short answer: No,” replied Presiding Commissioner Larry Miskel, R-Hermann.

That might still be the answer when Sink, who is MRPC’s point person on administering the funds, checks the status of the plan-writing early next  month.

When commissioners do put pencil to paper and cobble a plan, they will be working within a framework that includes five ARPA-eligible activities:

1. Supporting public health expenditures. 

That could include funding coronavirus mitigation efforts, medical expenses, behavioral healthcare and certain public health and safety staff. That conceivably could extend into aiding the Gasconade County Health Department, which was forced to essentially curtail regular agency activities to focus on contact tracing during the height of the initial wave of the virus.

2. Address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency. 

This can include economic harms to workers, households, small businesses and industries and the public sector at large. The reference to “workers” and “households” could indicate potential direct assistance from county government, just as small businesses were able to benefit from the CARES Act program, which helped offset income loss up to $35,000 for some businesses and $50,000 per approved application for larger employers.

3. Replacing lost public sector revenue. This provision will allow ARPA money to be used to provide government services that were not provided because of revenue loss because of the pandemic.

4. Providing premium pay for essential workers.

This provision allows additional pay to those workers who have and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service during the pandemic.

5. Invest in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure.

This provision allows ARPA funds to be used to improve access to clean drinking water, support critical wastewater and stormwater infrastructure and to expand access to broadband Internet service. There are no county-specific water or sewer projects, but county government could use some of the ARPA money to help other public entities such as a municipality or a Public Water Supply District finance upgrades to their systems. As for broadband expansion, an advisory panel of the MRPC — the Gasconade County Broadband Committee — is trying to find ways to increase access to the Internet to the more-remote areas of the county now without broadband access. 

Thus far, the consensus of the group appears to be that the future of making broadband more widely available hinges entirely on having adequate funding. That means to make broadband access available to those remote portions of Gasconade County likely would require substantially more than what the county is receiving through ARPA.

But even with a clearer understanding of what the money is intended for, there remains a degree of hesitancy among administrators to move quickly on committing to specific projects — a hesitancy based on very recent history.

As Northern District Associate Commissioner Jim Holland, R-Hermann, pointed out to Sink during the Commission session, the rules governing the use of the CARES Act money changed early and often during that program. What began as strictly a reimbursement program for government agencies that incurred expenses to fight the virus evolved into a treasure chest for any number of projects that might be considered suspect at best in terms of being connected to the battle against the coronavirus.

Holland asked Sink if she thought the same thing — a shift in purpose for the money — might happen with the ARPA funding.

She said she didn’t think such a change will be forthcoming because the federal government has had more time to consider and agree on the uses of ARPA dollars, compared to the  rush-it-out-the-door allocation of CARES Act money.

Sink might be right, but the Gasconade County administrators likely will move in a deliberate fashion in deciding how to use the money — just in case she isn’t.