Council takes first look at $265,000 in federal funds

At a special budget workshop Tuesday La Conner’s Town Council spent 30 minutes deliberating how to spend $264,911 in federal funds from the America Rescue Plan Act. Spending is prescribed by Congress, Administrator Scott Thomas informed council in a four-page memorandum July 21 sent with Mayor Ramon Hayes’ notice of the meeting.

Summarizing “Options for Use of Fiscal Recovery Funds,” Thomas wrote, “the Town will have flexibility to decide how best to use the funding to meet specific community needs.”

Thomas outlined “potential uses of these funds (to) begin discussions to establish priorities, identify opportunities and take the appropriate next steps.”

The defined areas are:

• Support urgent COVID-19 response efforts;

• Replace lost revenue for local governments to support vital public services and retain jobs;

• Support immediate economic stabilization;

• Address systemic public health and economic challenges.

For “Supporting Public Health Expenditures” Thomas’s phrasing for COVID-19 response efforts, he pointed to “added burden of responding to the heat emergency at the end of June, which necessitated the creation of a cooling center” and the part-time closing of Town Hall. Projecting future heat emergencies, cooling equipment for Town Hall, Maple Hall, and the fire station is an option.

“Assistance to households” is the term Thomas used for addressing immediate economic stabilization. He highlighted sewer and water utility customers whose unpaid balance for these utility billings that are at least two months past due amounts to approximately $8,500,

Under “replacing lost revenue” to the Town, Thomas targeted the dramatic reduction in 2020’s hotel/motel tax revenues down two-thirds from the $150,000 collected each year from 2017 -2019. Monies could go to “tourism-related activities” and restoring a portion of the La Conner Chamber of Commerce’s budget.

Thomas addressed systemic public health and economic challenges through investing in water and sewer infrastructure. Already being planned from 2018 is the Phase 2 water transmission line replacement then estimated at $2,592,700. The cost will “likely be higher, perhaps significantly,” Thomas wrote, and “improvements to the wastewater treatment plant will be much more costly.

Council and Mayor Ramon Hayes discussed these and their own ideas for spending the funds. The Town has thrrough December 2024 to spend the first half and through 2026 to spend the balance.

Council amended the budget July 13, depositing its 2021 ARPA allocation of $ 132,456 into the general fund, increasing that 2021 fund by 10%. It now has to budget spending it.

These Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds are authorized under ARPA. The Town earlier gained funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.