HomeMy WebLinkAboutCity Manager Memo to Council re ARPA Grant Priorities 05 14 2024
TO: Honorable Mayor & Members of the Common Council
FROM: Mark A. Rohloff, City Manager
DATE: May 14, 2024
RE: ARPA Grant Priorities
BACKGROUND
On September 28, 2021, Council adopted Resolution 21-498, providing direction to staff on the
allocation of funds made available through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The
resolution specified that 75% of ARPA funds be used on city infrastructure, with the remaining
25% used for non-infrastructure or direct assistance purposes. The 25% allocation amounts to
$5,128,621. To date, $2,766,578.79 has been disbursed or approved, leaving $2,362,042.21 for
allocation. Earlier this year, Council directed me to begin another round of solicitations for use
of ARPA funds. This solicitation yielded 51 proposals totaling over $12 million in requests.
As with the prior round of solicitations, staff identified short-term and long-term goals that
should be pursued in ARPA funding decisions. The short-term goals that staff identified are as
follows:
• Help those with immediate needs
• Help those directly impacted by COVID-19
• Compliant with federal ARPA regulations
• Politically acceptable to the Council and community
• Ability to leverage ARPA funds with other revenue sources
• Avoid duplication of effort with other agencies and avoid duplication of ARPA funds
The long-term goals identified through various long-range plans include the following:
• Strategic plan goals
• Long-term visible impact
• Long-term benefit to individuals and community
• Long-term relief to those repaying ARPA funds in the future.
Staff evaluated the 51 applications through this lens, and while the exercise assisted in
determining the quality of the applications from a grant standpoint, the exercise did not place
weight on any specific priorities for the use of funds. This is where I would like to propose
some general priorities upon which Council can provide staff some direction.
ANALYSIS
At the April 23 Council meeting, I provided Council with a summary of the types of projects
that had been requested, using key words from each of the applications. This summary is in
your agenda packet for this evening’s meeting. Some of the most common categories are as
follows:
• Infrastructure (non-City)
• Employment
• Diversity
• Child Care
• Workforce
• Housing
• Homelessness
These categories give you an idea of some of the needs that have been identified by the
community and other city departments that vary significantly from city infrastructure. The
challenge is taking these categories of proposed uses and translating them into priorities for the
allocation of ARPA funds.
As a guide for which priorities we may want to set for this phase of ARPA funding, staff
reviewed the City’s Strategic Plan, both the current 2023-24 plan and the draft 2025-26 plan that
will be coming before Council shortly; the comments provided to Council by the focus group
we had assembled on strategic planning, in which emerging community issues were identified;
as well as the City Manager’s 2024 goals, which were established by Council. Based on this
input, staff found several common themes and four priorities emerged, in the following order of
importance:
1. Housing, particularly affordable housing
2. Homelessness, both acute and preventive
3. Child Care capacity
4. DEI/under represented populations
This is not to suggest that there were not other priorities, but that these areas are common in the
various exercises we have conducted, including several that have been or will be soon formally
adopted by Council. For this reason, before I bring forth actual applications to Council for
consideration, I would like Council direction that these are the four priorities on which staff
should focus its recommendations. This is not to say that all grant applications in these
categories be funded, because that sorting process alone would not remove enough applications
from consideration. However, when coupled with the other short-term and long-term goals
previously established by Council, we would be able to further evaluate grant applications and
give Council more focused recommendations.
RECOMMENDATION
Provide staff with direction that priority should be given to ARPA grant applications that
address the four priority categories as recommended by staff.