Council devises ways to spend rescue plan money

FAYETTEVILLE — The City Council reached consensus Wednesday on a few ways to spend its allocation of American Rescue Plan money but left discussion of nonprofit grants for another day.

The council held a workshop at City Hall to discuss how to use more than $17.9 million in federal pandemic relief money. Discussion focused on publicly oriented projects and financial assistance for organizations impacted by the pandemic.

Use of the money is divided into three buckets. The largest bucket, with $10 million available, would go toward general government services. The rest of the $7.9 million would be divided among projects — both publicly oriented ones and those supported with grants to nonprofits — and financial assistance for organizations.

Only a few projects would be run by the city or public entities. Those projects total nearly $2.9 million. However, the city has already spent more than $275,000 of that total on a vaccine incentive program and contributing to the Northwest Arkansas Council’s vaccination campaign. The City Council on Wednesday discussed the remaining $2.6 million or so in publicly oriented requests.

The largest of those requests is for a workforce training program with the Fayetteville Public Library, totaling about $1.2 million. The program would involve job skills training for residents in food services, construction and information technology.

The council asked to hold off on granting the request. Council member Teresa Turk asked for data on the effectiveness of workforce training programs in the city.

The council agreed three other publicly oriented projects should get the requested money. Two were a child care voucher program operated through the city’s Community Resources Division for $500,000 and expanding Head Start education facilities through Fayetteville Public Schools for $100,000. A third project would provide $757,917 to Central EMS to help replace ambulances, buy equipment and provide premium pay to personnel. Central EMS made a regionwide request of $2.2 million for assistance, and local governments across Washington County plan to each provide a portion based on population.

In addition to those three projects, the council agreed to grant more than $646,000 in requested financial assistance to organizations. Those organizations include St. James Missionary Baptist Church, the Fayetteville Housing Authority’s development nonprofit, the Fayetteville Public Library Foundation, Tri-Cycle Farms and nine others.

Chief Financial Officer Paul Becker said city staff could bring the council a proposal to pay for the three projects and cover the $646,000 in financial assistance for organizations for a meeting in October.

In a workshop last month, city staff presented the council more than $4.3 million in proposed grants for 11 nonprofits. The city received 34 applications from nonprofits requesting nearly $20.4 million.

Council member Mark Kinion suggested the city use some of the $10 million proposed for government services to grant more requests from nonprofit groups.

The council voted in April to take a standard allowance of $ 10 million, rather than sending an itemized reimbursement request to the federal government for the estimated $6.9 million in revenue the city lost during the pandemic.

Becker advised the council against taking the $10 million for government services and using some of it for nonprofits. He said if the council wants to use more money for nonprofits, it should rescind the standard allowance and submit the individualized request demonstrating the $6.9 million in lost revenue.

Five council members — Sonia Gutiérrez Harvey, Mike Wiederkehr, Sloan Scroggin, Sarah Bunch and Holly Hertzberg — said they wanted to keep the standard allowance. Turk joined Kinion in wanting to discuss the idea more. Council member D’Andre Jones didn’t speak on the matter.