4. Allocation of American Rescue Plan Act Funds - slides (UPDATED slide 13)Allocation of American Rescue Plan Act Funds
Presented Wednesday, January 5, 2022
Summary
•Brief on the Passage of the ARPA and what it includes…
•Timing of Receipt of Funds
•Eligible Uses of Funds…
•Available Options for Use
•Recommendation
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American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
•Passed March 11, 2021
•It was $1.9 Trillion recovery package, includes:
▫Child Tax Credit Program
▫Homeowner’s Assistance Program
▫Emergency Retail Assistance
▫Funding for Small Business Credit Expansion
▫Expansion of Unemployment Benefits
▫Employee Retention Credit and Paid Leave Credit Programs
▫Capital Projects Fund
▫State & Local Fiscal Recovery Fund –CITY RECIPIENT
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Receipt & Timing of Funds
•The City will be receiving $441,892.
•We have only received the first settlement, $220,946 in the 3rd quarter of
last year.
•The next half will be distributed after May 10, 2022, through the State of
Minnesota Office of Budget and Finance.
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Eligible Expense Summary
The Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds under the ARPA is intended to provide “a substantial infusion of resources to meet pandemic response needs and rebuild a stronger, and more
equitable economy as the country recovers. The US Treasury notes the following key areas of funding
eligibility:
•Support public health expenditures, by, for example, funding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, medical
expenses, behavioral healthcare, and certain public health and safety staff.
•Address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including economic
harms to workers, households, small businesses, impacted industries, and the public sector.
•Replace lost public sector revenue, using this funding to provide government services to the extent of
the reduction in revenue experienced due to the pandemic.
•Provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who have and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service in critical infrastructure sectors.
•Invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, making necessary investments to improve
access to clean drinking water, support vital wastewater and stormwater infrastructure, and to expand
access to broadband internet
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Responding to the public health emergency
Expenses may include:
•Vaccination and testing programs
•Purchase of PPE and materials need for EMS response.
▫(Not needed at this time.)
•Support for congregate living facilities such as group living and homeless
shelters.
•Pandemic public health response for prevention, mitigation, and enforcement.
•Capital investments in public facilities to meet pandemic operational needs are
also eligible, such as improvements to public buildings to implement COVID-19
mitigation tactics.
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Responding to the negative economic impacts of the
pandemic
•assistance to households, includes but is not limited to:
▫food assistance; rent, mortgage, or utility assistance; counseling and legal aid to
prevent eviction or homelessness; cash assistance; emergency assistance for
burials, home repairs, weatherization, or other needs; internet access or digital
literacy assistance; or job training to address negative economic or public
health impacts experienced due to a worker’s occupation or level of training.
•aid to impacted industries
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Responding to the negative economic impacts of the
pandemic (Continued)
•Assistance to small businesses and non-profits; includes but is not limited
to:
▫Example -Loans or grants to mitigate financial hardships due to business
closures like payroll support, employee retention loans rent, and other
operating costs.
▫Loans, grants, or in-kind assistance to implement COVID-19 prevention or
mitigation tactics such as funding changes for social distancing, funding
vaccination, testing or contact tracing.
▫Technical assistance, counseling, or other services to assist with business
planning needs
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Premium pay for essential workers
•An amount up to $13 per hour that is paid to an eligible worker in addition to
wages the worker otherwise received, for all work performed by the eligible
worker during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Such amount may not
exceed $25,000 per eligible worker.
•Essential workers are those in critical infrastructure sectors who regularly
perform in-person work, interact with others at work, or physically handle items
handled by others. Low-income workers are the intended focus.
•Critical infrastructure sectors include healthcare, education and childcare,
transportation, sanitation, grocery and food production, and public health and
safety, among others, as provided in the Treasury guidance. Governments
receiving Fiscal Recovery Funds have the discretion to add additional sectors to
this list, so long as the sectors are considered critical to protect the health and
well-being of residents.
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Revenue replacement
•This provision is intended to help local governments that have experienced
revenue shortfalls on an entity wide-basis during the pandemic relative to
previous years revenues.
▫Examples uncollected taxes and uncollected permit revenue.
▫It excludes refunds and other correcting transactions, proceeds from issuance
of debt or the sale of investments, agency or private trust transactions, and
revenue generated by utilities and insurance trusts. General revenue also
includes intergovernmental transfers between state and local governments, but
excludes intergovernmental transfers from the Federal government
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Investments in water and sewer
•Under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund
(CWSRF), categories of eligible projects include: construction of publicly owned
treatment works, nonpoint source pollution management, national estuary
program projects, decentralized wastewater treatment systems, stormwater
systems, water conservation, efficiency, and reuse measures, watershed pilot
projects, energy efficiency measures for publicly-owned treatment works, water
reuse projects, security measures at publicly-owned treatment works, and
technical assistance
•Costs for construction on eligible water and sewer infrastructure projects must
be obligated by Dec. 31, 2024. The period of performance will run until Dec. 31,
2026, which will provide recipients a reasonable amount of time to complete
projects funded with Fiscal Recovery Funds.
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Investments in Broadband
•Broadband improvements require minimum speeds of 100 Mbps download and
100 Mbps upload. In cases where it is impracticable due to geography,
topography, or financial cost to meet those standards, projects must reliably
deliver at least 100 Mbps download speed, at least 20 Mbps upload speed, and be
scalable to a minimum of 100 Mbps download speed and 100 Mbps upload
speed. Must be designed to serve unserved or underserved households and
businesses.
•broadband infrastructure projects must be obligated by Dec. 31, 2024. The
period of performance will run until Dec. 31, 2026, which will provide recipients
a reasonable amount of time to complete projects funded with Fiscal Recovery
Funds.
•May be subject to fund overlap restrictions with existing federally funded projects
offered through RDOF or the state’s Border-to-Border Broadband Grant, which
has been funded with ARPA funds.
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Prohibited Uses of Funds•Funds cannot be used to directly or indirectly offset tax reductions or delay
a tax/tax increase, nor can funds be deposited into any pension fund.
▫UPDATE –The funds can be allocated to this year’s anticipated broadband
buildout since no actual arrangements have been made yet. The caveat is that
the project must not overlap with other award areas backed with federal
funding (RDOF, Mn Border-to-Border backed by ARPA, etc.)
•Approved projects must meet the criteria set by US Treasury, and when
applicable the EPA.
•Funds spent must be appropriately tracked and should be charged to the
ARPA’s independent fund to help ease reporting administration.
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Challenges
•Some of the eligible uses either are not applicable.
•Some options require staffing or services currently not offered by the City.
To see any of these alternatives would require securing a 3rd party to
perform the service.
•Caution to be duplicative of County programming. Washington County
has received $50,975,893 in comparison to the City’s $442k.
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Most Reasonable Uses of Funds Include
•Financial Assistance to supplement costs for state mandated nitrate treatment at
the Bliss WWTP for the City’s Big Marine Sewer Utility.
•Broadband expansion projects for underserved and unserved areas defined as
those that are not currently served by a wireline connection that reliably delivers
at least 25 Mbps download speed and 3 Mbps of upload speed.
•Washington County has established both residential and business relief
programs. When the Cares Act provided funding last time, the County’s
allocation more than covered the demands for assistance. Its likely that their
programming will also be more effective given the significantly larger pool of
funds made available to them. It is also establishing a $2 mil broadband grant
program.
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Next Steps
•Consider adopting a resolution clarifying what project or projects ARPA
Funds should be appropriated with findings that support spending
eligibility. Projects must be reasonably anticipated to be obligated, meaning
under contractual commitment to complete prior to the year end of 2024.
•Funds that are not obligated or used by the above mentioned deadline,
must be returned.
•Funds must be declared or appropriate to eligible projects by Year End
2024.
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