Billions to pour into Colorado

State will receive about $5.7 billion, with nearly $1 billion expected to come into the metro area

Colorado’s state and local governments will be seeing a total of more than $5.7 billion in federal money — including nearly $974 million in the Denver metro — money that the U.S. Treasury started sending Monday as part of pandemic recovery efforts.

The money comes from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion package signed into law by President Joe Biden in March. That package included $350 billion for state and local governments nationwide, an unprecedented infusion of cash directly to cities, counties and towns that can be spent in several ways.

All of this money is on top of the $37 billion the state received in 2020 from the first round of pandemic funding, known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act.

Gene Sperling, the White House’s American Rescue Plan coordinator, told reporters Monday morning that “1.3 million state and local jobs have been lost since the onset of COVID,” and that the majority are local government jobs.

Most governments will receive the money in two tranches, with half arriving this month and the other half in May 2022. Funding can be spent on things to improve public health, address the economic downturn, replace lost tax revenue, increase pay for essential workers or invest in broadband, water and sewer infrastructure.

Colorado’s state government alone will receive $3.8 billion.

Here’s a quick glance of how much counties and cities in the Denver metro area are getting, listed in alphabetical order.

Counties

• $100 million: Adams County.

• $128 million: Arapahoe County.

• $63 million: Boulder County.

• $21 million: Broomfield County and city, broken down by $14 million to the county and $7 million to the city.

• $308 million: Denver County and city, broken down by $141 million going to the county and $167 million to the city.

• $68 million: Douglas County.

• $113 million: Jefferson County.

Cities

• $11 million: Arvada.

• $65 million: Aurora.

• $20 million: Boulder.

• $5.7 million: Castle Rock.

• $8.5 million: Centennial.

• $21.6 million: Lakewood.

• $4.5 million: Parker.

• $21 million: Thornton.

• $14.5 million: Westminster.

Most metro-area counties and cities said Monday that they already have experience receiving and allocating CARES Act money and will take a similar accounting approach with the American Rescue Act money.

They stressed that they are already bound to follow the federal guidelines attached to the new program, but will go further at the local level when it comes to allocating and tracking the new dollars.

Adams County plans to hire accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen to help it account for all expenditures from the new money.

Denver said it’ll release more information soon on how officials plan to spend and track the second round of incoming federal money. An accounting of the CARES Act funding is available to the public on an online dashboard and city Auditor Tim O’Brien will hire an outside firm to audit that spending for a late summer report.

Boulder officials said they aren’t yet sure how they’ll track the money, though they expect to propose spending recommendations and accountability measures to the City Council in June.

Several cities and counties said it’s advantageous that they have through 2024 to spend the money.

“We have time to complete this review and make recommendations to town council on the best use of these funds for Castle Rock,” Castle Rock spokeswoman Melissa Hoelting said.