photo by: Screenshot of Douglas County Commission meeting

The Douglas County Commission began to make some decisions about where to direct American Rescue Plan Act funding at its June 22, 2022 meeting.

Douglas County leaders decided Wednesday to set aside about $7.8 million of the county’s remaining American Rescue Plan Act funding for a list of internal projects recommended by county staff.

That amounts to about 33% of the roughly $21 million in ARPA funding that the county still has to distribute. County commissioners were mostly in agreement about using that amount for the county government’s own projects and allocating the rest to nonprofits and other groups and organizations in the community.

“I would advocate for us to stick to that 33% for internals for ARPA, mostly because these are one-time funds,” Commissioner Shannon Portillo said. “This is time for us to invest not just in our community, but also in the administrative structure of our community and what that looks like, and these are all things that would benefit our community broadly.”

It’s unclear which specific projects would be funded using that chunk of aid money. County staff didn’t walk the commission through an exhaustive list at Wednesday’s meeting.

The commission also had the option to set aside only 25% for internal county projects, and that was the option that Commissioner Patrick Kelly said he initially was leaning toward. He said he thought there were many “thoughtful proposals” on the table from external agencies.

But County Administrator Sarah Plinsky said that no matter what the commission chose to do, many projects wouldn’t get the money they’d requested. That’s because all of the ARPA funding requests added up to more than $100 million — several times the $21 million the county has available.

“This is an exciting process; it is truly an opportunity to invest funds locally in a really impactful way that the county has not had an opportunity to do in the past,” Plinsky said. “That being said, it’s bittersweet in some ways, because there’s more projects that are really valuable and provide extensive impact in our community that we simply just don’t have the money to fund.”

After setting aside 33% of the money for internal projects, commissioners will still have about $13.7 million to work with for external requests. That list was one the commission began to narrow down last week, and commissioners on Wednesday made a list of projects that they do intend to fully or partially fund.

That list accounts for roughly $8.5 million of the remaining funding. Some of the specific projects on the list include a $4 million request from the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority for a 32-unit expansion at its Clinton Place development; an $850,000 request from Lawrence Habitat for Humanity to acquire land that will eventually be developed into an affordable housing community; and $325,000 in partial project funding to help Just Food build a new parking lot.

Commissioners will discuss ARPA funding requests one more time next week. County leaders still wanted to learn more about a few requests, including projects from Tenants to Homeowners and substance abuse treatment and support agency DCCCA.