The American Rescue Plan (ARPA) provides a total of $350 billion in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to help eligible state, local, territorial, and Tribal governments meet their present needs and build the foundation for a strong recovery.
According to the Treasury Department’s ARPA Fact-Sheet, ARPA funds may only be used for the following:
• Support public health expenditures, by funding COVID-19 mitigation efforts, medical expenses,
behavioral healthcare, and certain public health and safety staff;
• Address negative economic impacts caused by the public health emergency, including
economic harms to workers, households, small businesses, impacted industries, and the public
sector;
• Replace lost public sector revenue, using this funding to provide government services to the
extent of the reduction in revenue experienced due to the pandemic;
• Provide premium pay for essential workers, offering additional support to those who have
borne and will bear the greatest health risks because of their service in critical infrastructure
sectors; and,
• Invest in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure, making necessary investments to
improve access to clean drinking water, support vital wastewater and stormwater
infrastructure, and to expand access to broadband internet.
The City of Newton was allocated $63 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. According to the City’s ARPA website, the City has designated approximately $28 million of those funds.
Some communities have committees and processes in place to review requests for ARPA funding. In Newton, the Mayor has held listening sessions – three with the City Council and two with the community at-large.
The Mayor recently announced that an additional $1.5 million of ARPA funding will be going to NPS after “NPS financial staff scrubbed their books and informed her that $1.1 million in COVID-related projects had not yet been reimbursed and other summer projects involving ventilation and new space for specialized programs.”
In addition, the Mayor has allocated approximately $3 million to provide stipends for NPS school employees (see above). At the April 4th School Committee meeting, the School Committee member Chris Brezski questioned the appropriateness of the use of ARPA funds and asked to postpone the vote in order to get a legal opinion on whether this allocation meets the permitted uses of ARPA funds (listed above). The School Committee will discuss this topic at its April 11th meeting.
