LR board taking up aid-funds measure

Resolution lists spending plans

Members of the Little Rock Board of Directors will get the opportunity at a meeting today to apportion more of the nearly $19 million windfall from the federal covid-19 relief package passed earlier this year.

That sum represents half of an expected $37.7 million to be disbursed by next year. Little Rock received the first tranche of money in May.

The resolution on the board’s agenda this week would symbolically allocate approximately $6.3 million of the federal funding.

The board recently adopted another resolution expressing the city’s intent to spend roughly $11.6 million on initiatives such as bonus pay for certain employees, covid-19 mitigation efforts and infrastructure upgrades for information technology and cybersecurity.

Individual projects listed on the resolution approved earlier this month — as well as those listed on the resolution up for review this evening — will have to come back before the board for formal authorization later.

Approximately $350 billion in direct aid to local jurisdictions such as cities, counties and states was included in the covid-19 stimulus legislation signed by President Joe Biden in March.

The U.S. Department of Treasury has said expenditures can fall within five broad categories. They include public health; water, sewer and broadband infrastructure

work; and extra pay for essential workers.

Two items related to technology are included in the latest draft resolution under a Treasury-delineated category of expenditures meant to account for lost government revenue.

Information technology upgrades are to get more money under the latest resolution. The measure says an estimated $821,000 would go to software and I.T. upgrades for the city’s purchasing and planning divisions.

Additionally, an estimated $337,000 would fund broadband installation at the East Little Rock Community Center and internet hot spots at various city parks.

Approximately $1.5 million would fund efforts related to affordable housing and homelessness, according to the measure, with another $240,000 included under the infrastructure category to support future affordable-housing sites.

Drainage work would get an estimated $3 million, according to the resolution.

Equipment intended to be used at public meetings during the pandemic would be funded with $100,000.

Indirect costs associated with administering the aid are expected to total close to $330,000.

The city’s finance director, Sara Lenehan, gave a broad overview of the latest plans for the covid-19 aid to members of the board last week.