{"id":10887,"date":"2023-12-18T09:17:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T14:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=10887"},"modified":"2023-12-18T09:17:02","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T14:17:02","slug":"adams-county-utilizes-almost-all-remaining-arpa-funds-in-december-council-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/12\/18\/adams-county-utilizes-almost-all-remaining-arpa-funds-in-december-council-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Adams County utilizes almost all remaining ARPA funds in December council meeting\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

HAYDEN J EMRAH<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A seminal moment occurred at the December Adams County Council meeting, where the last bits of ARPA money were appropriated towards projects, upgrades and updates to various services around the county. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA as it is commonly referred to, is a federal initiative to support local and state government, as well as provide funds to the American people in the form of stimulus checks, during the pandemic period. Indiana allotted $1.28 billion to the various counties, with $6.9 million being awarded to Adams County, the first half of which was received in May of 2021 and the second half in spring of 2022. These funds were outlined in the act to be used in performing government duties impacted by the pandemic, upgrading of water, sewer, and broader county infrastructure, as well as provide funding towards public health and essential workers throughout the county.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since the distribution of these funds, Adams county has been using them for various upgrades to the county: infrastructure upgrades for emergency response services, including software, personnel and equipment upgrades; recreational services such as the pickleball courts and the Kekionga project; the addition of the Adams County Animal Shelter, as well as a slew of county-wide upgrades to IT services, building maintenance, etc. It is hard to overstate how integral these funds have been in the operation of the county, especially for things that the county could not have otherwise warranted adding to its budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commissioner Steve Bailey expressed his gratitude toward ARPA funding and its ability to tackle issues in an October commissioner meeting in regards to approving security upgrades to the circuit courthouse, stating, \u201cthese things […] when I think about ARPA, are things that are maybe nice to have, but can\u2019t quite get the funding for right now. This is one of those things that\u2019s nice to have\u2013even need to have\u2013we can\u2019t quite figure out how we’re gonna pay for it right now, ARPA lets us go ahead and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the December County Council meeting, council members allotted the remaining money for four separate resolutions. These projects and upgrades go to showcase the usefulness and versatility of the federal funds, which included:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • $68,000 for a new 911 dispatch service for the county, as mentioned in another article about upgrades to the Adams County Sheriff’s Department. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
      \n
    • $200,000 for the development of a comprehensive land use plan\u2013an all-encompassing document that lays out specific guidelines and goals for a county, which acts like a master document to set a vision for what the county will look like in the coming decades and how that is specifically achieved. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
        \n
      • $300,000 to county IT services for server and system upgrades. This includes replacing hardware and software that has reached end-of-life support and additional equipment such as servers and network switches to expand county internet access in public buildings. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
          \n
        • $500,000 to the clerks-treasurer office for the development and implementation for the digitization and storage of county documents While currently in its inception, this plan includes the proposed addition of an archive room for county documents, as well as gathering the various historical and financial documents scattered around locales within the county.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

          This leaves a total of $8,366.77 undisbursed as of the December county meeting, which will likely be utilized as supplemental funding to any additional needs presented to the council at their January meeting. Under the stipulations of ARPA money, allocation for the funds need to be submitted to the state by the end of 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          HAYDEN J EMRAH WZBD.com A seminal moment occurred at the December Adams County Council meeting, where the last<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[15,21],"class_list":["post-10887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/IMG_6956-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}