Town may seek help allocating aid funds

OLD SAYBROOK —

First Selectman Carl Fortuna said the town should consider hiring an outside consultant to help officials determine how to allocate nearly $2.9 million in funds received from the American Rescue Plan Act.

“I don’t think we can move forward with this amount of money … without a consultant,” Fortuna said, noting the amount of aid represents about one-seventh of the town’s municipal budget.

The idea, which Fortuna raised Wednesday at an afternoon Board of Selectmen’s meeting, is the latest example of how municipal officials are seeking assistance as they prepare to spend the nearly $2.55 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds distributed to the state’s municipalities.

In East Lyme, for example, officials scheduled a town meeting to solicit input from the public, while in Montville a new ad-hoc committee was formed to help determine the best use of the funds. In other towns, the decisions about how to spend the money are being left up to boards and commissions that regularly decide budget matters.

Fortuna said he would like to see a significant chunk of that money dedicated to Old Saybrook’s downtown and Main Street corridor, necessitating the advice of someone knowledgeable in town planning as well as the federal guidelines for how to spend ARPA funds.

“I don’t think I know it all, I just don’t,” Fortuna told his fellow selectmen, adding “consultants can help.”

Cities and towns have wide discretion in how they allocate APRA funds, though some uses, such as depositing the money into pension funds, are not allowed, according to guidance from the National League of Cities. Fortuna said he would seek to pay for a consultant using ARPA funds, which he said would be an allowable expense.

The proposal received little push-back from Old Saybrook’s two other selectmen at Wednesday’s meeting, though no official action was taken toward hiring a consultant.

Selectman Matthew Pugliese asked Fortuna: “What role do you see a consultant playing?” Fortuna replied that he wanted to hire someone to “help us see a bigger vision.”

Fortuna said he had already spoken to several consultants to gauge their interest, though he said the town would have to submit a request for proposals before deciding whether to hire anyone. Officials can use the bidding process to “see what a consultant can bring to the table and whether they can convince us,” he said.

While the selectmen took no official action Wednesday toward hiring a consultant, they did continue the process of actually allocating some of the money they have already received from ARPA.

The board unanimously approved distribution of the following funds to local nonprofits that were impacted by the pandemic: $10,000 to the Shoreline Soup Kitchen to help purchase a refrigerated truck, $23,900 to the Old Saybrook Chamber of Commerce, $23,000 to the Old Saybrook Historical Society, $7,000 to the Old Saybrook Garden Club and $100,000 to the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, which is undergoing an expansion project.

That funding comes on top of $77,000 that Fortuna said the board previously approved for a water infrastructure project.