Township to turn down $141K in COVID funds

Broomfield Township Supervisor Christy Mathewson said he did some quick estimating to see how far the $141,617 in federal COVID-19 aid his township qualified for would go towards installing broadband Internet service.

It … wasn’t very far.

“There is no sense in even pretending,” Mathewson said. Between that, American Rescue Plan Act spending restrictions and the fact that the township’s finances are pretty strong, Broomfield’s board decided to turn down the money the township qualified for.

“We opted to let the other townships who can use it, use it,” he said.

Broomfield Township’s board was one of 46 local governments in Michigan that did not receive ARPA money and one of 10 that turned it down. Among the other nine was Clare County’s Redding Township, which turned down $56,102.

The other 36 never requested the money. None of those were in Isabella, Gratiot or Clare counties.

All told, governments in Michigan qualified for more than $10 billion in money under ARPA. That includes $17.6 million for Isabella County, $2.4 million for Mt. Pleasant and $1.6 million for Union Township.

The money comes with restrictions on how it’s spent, however. ARPA money can go towards emergency services, bonus pay, certain infrastructure projects or lost revenue.

Broomfield doesn’t fall into any of those categories, Mathewson said. Broomfield Township doesn’t provide its own public safety services. The township just revamped its hall a few years ago, he said, which included work on its air circulation system.

Local governments that take the money have a couple of years to submit a plan of how they plan to spend the money, and until 2026 to actually spend it.