FAYETVILLE — Two proposals totaling $4 million will give city councilors a choice on how to spend the rest of the American Rescue Plan funds.
City Councilman Sonia Harvey sponsored a bill that would allocate $3 million in funding or project grants to arts and culture nonprofits operating in the city.
Separately, city councilor Teresa Turk announced a $1 million measure that would allow organizations to apply for financial assistance for pandemic-related revenue losses incurred between March 2020 and March 2021. Sponsored by Until March 2022.
The council will consider both proposals on Tuesday.
Both proposals include their own application process. The city plans to accept applications for art and culture proposals from February. City finance staff review applications to determine which ones meet federal requirements. By March, the city’s resident-led Arts Council, an advisory board to the city council, will review eligible applications and develop a list of recommendations. The City Council will decide which organizations to fund by April, following the Arts Council’s recommendations.
A provisional timetable for application processing has not been set for the financial assistance proposal, but it will function much like the previous application process, which opened February 18 through April. The city council will approve all eligible applications received from nonprofits seeking to recoup financial losses during the pandemic, totaling $582,013 for 11 organizations.
The maximum amount of financial aid was $150,510 to St. James Missionary Baptist Church. FHA Development, the development nonprofit of the Fayetteville Housing Authority, received his second largest sum at $104,936. The Fayetteville Public Library Foundation, a nonprofit organization that does library fundraising, received her third-largest sum at $89,016.
Organizations seeking financial assistance were required to submit supporting documents to the city to verify the amounts. The economic loss period covered was from March 2021 to March 2022. Turk said he wants to make sure the nonprofit has an opportunity to recoup any losses it may have incurred in the first year of the pandemic.
trial and tally
The city has broken down the federal American Rescue Plan’s funding of $17.9 million into three categories.
Nonprofits had two options.
They can demand money simply to recoup past economic losses during the pandemic as long as they provide the proper paperwork to the city. That process involves entering into a “sub-recipient” contract with the city on how long the proposed project or program will last.
The third bucket was for city projects. The City Council has so far allocated approximately $7.8 million in total for city use. The largest portion, about $5.1 million, will help recoup the city’s financial losses during the pandemic and can be used for a variety of purposes, including water and sewage works, parks, and computer network upgrades. Congress has yet to decide how the money will be used.
Other city uses include approximately $1.8 million in employee appreciation payments, $500,000 for a childcare voucher program, $201,840 for a study evaluating water quality in Lake Fayetteville, and $181,100 for a vaccine incentive program. I’m here.
For non-profit sub-recipient groups, the council has approved projects worth approximately $4.2 million to date. A maximum of approximately $1.4 million was donated to the Watershed Conservation Resource Center for floodplain conservation efforts. Fayetteville Public Library received over $1.2 million for her workforce development program at the Center for Innovation and Education Kitchen. Central EMS received $757,917 to purchase ambulances and equipment and to provide premium wages to its employees. Peace at Home Family Shelter received $686,500 for its expansion. The Northwest Arkansas Council said he received $93,969 for the vaccine awareness campaign.
Overall, the Council authorized spending over $12.6 million out of a total of $17.9 million.
In addition to Harvey’s $3 million proposal and Turk’s $1 million proposal, the council has two potential allocations on Tuesday’s agenda. Magdalene Serenity House is asking for her $128,789 to renovate a home for former incarcerated women’s program graduates. WelcomeHealth is asking for her $75,000 to provide customers with her one year of free medical and dental care.
On January 17, the council will take up a proposal to provide the Excellent Foundation with $742,223 for vocational training programs.
If the Council approved all five proposed uses of federal aid funds, that would total approximately $4.9 million, leaving $343,699 unallocated.
looking to the future
There are still several proposals for subrecipient programs that have ranked highly in the city’s scoring system, but have not been brought up for consideration by members of the city council.
The Illinois River Watershed Partnership requested $893,272 for stormwater maintenance work. The Beaver Watershed Alliance has requested $100,000 to clean the Town Branch watershed. Arkansas Legal Aid requested $92,156 to provide legal services to residents whose Medicaid was suspended.
Additionally, Apple Seeds asked for $71,000 to provide meals and cooking classes to low-income families. The Northwest Arkansas Crisis Intervention Center requested $50,000 to support its suicide prevention hotline. Credit Counseling of Arkansas requested $35,200 from her to provide financial counseling to low-income residents.
There are still many organizations whose program or project applications did not rank high. The city received a total of 34 applications seeking more than $20 million.
The city’s $500,000 child care voucher program has received about 150 applications, with between 35 and 40 applications submitted, Chief Financial Officer Paul Becker said. The program is scheduled to start next month.
The program provides low- to middle-income families with vouchers to pay child care providers for up to 12 months of child care. Anyone who lives, works, or attends school in the city and meets the income criteria can apply.
In Tuesday’s agenda-setting session, Becker and Mayor Lioneld Jordan told the city council that the program will likely need more funding.
“This is going to be a very popular program,” Becker said.
The City must mandate all U.S. Relief Program funds by the end of 2024 and use them by 2026. Otherwise, the city must return unused funds to the federal government.
Harvey said figuring out how to best use the remaining rescue plan funds is a big job for the council. She said her $3 million proposed to arts and culture bodies was an arts council proposal, the idea being to aim high and for the city council to consider how much to allocate. Harvey, who represents the City Council for the Arts Council, said he was open to discussing the amount.
Harvey said he hopes groups in the creative economy will have the opportunity to stand out and be uniquely supported among other demands. She’s heard from a number of arts group representatives who say she’s still feeling the effects of the pandemic.
“For me, it’s about providing relief to the individuals and sectors most affected by covid,” she said.
Turk said she felt the primary purpose of the relief plan’s funding should be to help nonprofits recover lost revenue. By extending from March 2020 to March 2021, when many covid-related restrictions were in place, we speculated that the city could receive more applications than at first.
“We need to put these groups back together and put them back together,” Turk said.
