On June 24, Brooksville’s City Council met for a special meeting to discuss a variety of topics, including a plan for the allocation of the remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. The city, which had been granted a total of $4,289,311 by the bill, must act fast. The council only has until the December 2024 deadline to decide where the nearly $700,000 in leftover funds will go.
As various projects that had been approved under ARPA have either been removed, revised, or combined, the city has currently allocated $3,595,568 of those dollars. On top of having less than six months to decide where the money will be spent, these projects must also be completed by December of
2026.
After looking into the city’s needs, City Manager Charlene Kuhn and her staff put together a list of potential projects and brought them before the council last month. The council discussed, adjusted, and axed several more items from her proposal, leaving funds that are still to be allocated. The remaining projects and their amounts are enumerated below:
Commercial Lawn Maintenance Equipment – $100,000
Manlift – $60,000
Jerome Brown Basketball Court Resurfacing (Rear of Building) – $20,000
Furniture for New DPW (Department of Public Works) Facility – $200,000
Total – $$380,000
According to the meeting’s agenda, most of these items are “direct purchase,” which means that “a scope of work would not be required and those that do require a scope of work would be easily achieved, and funds quickly allocated, thereby meeting the December 2024 fund allocation deadline.” The city manager added that these amounts are just “ballpark” estimates as they did not have time to get quotes for specific prices before the Monday meeting.
Some of the potential ARPA-funded projects are already accounted for in the city’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) for Fiscal Year 2025, such as the Fire Department’s roof ($50,000) and the renting of a manlift ($5,000). While the roof will remain as part of the CIP, ARPA funds will be used to outright purchase a manlift as opposed to renting one every year.
The city manager noted that Duke Energy has agreed to do a $50,000 sponsorship for the city, which would allow the council to only put $100,000 of ARPA funding toward lawn maintenance equipment as opposed to $150,000. The council also agreed that they did not wish to put ARPA money toward two items that were on Kuhn’s list at the start of the discussion: the cabinetry in the Hernando Park building ($20,000) and renovating the council’s dais ($20,000).
After these items were slashed from the ARPA list and Kuhn discovered a typo in one of the total amounts, it was determined that there would still be $313,742.77 left over. The city manager is now awaiting “final invoicing and one estimate/upcoming bid for previously approved projects as well as accurate estimated costs on these potential allocations,” stated an email from City Clerk Jennifer Battista.
The council hopes to put $150,000 of that total toward the Wastewater Interconnect, which the Sun has covered previously. Mayor Bell and company are now looking to use the money from the ARPA funds, as opposed to the original plan of using reserves, toward the interconnect. Since federal requests take time, the council is also preparing for a contingency in case Public Works Director Richard Weeks is unable to get back to them with an answer in a timely manner.
In the event the funds are unable or unnecessary for use in the interconnect, the councilors agreed to put the money toward sidewalks. Council Member Christa Tanner was the first to propose the idea of allocating the funds toward infrastructure. Tanner noted that she “would like to allocate money first toward the interconnect, and if for some reason we can’t or we don’t need it, I would like to put the remaining toward sidewalks.”
Even after the potential allocation of the $150,000 for the interconnect or for sidewalks, there would still be roughly $164,000 to be assigned by December. The city manager will present more details regarding the remaining funds at the council meeting on August 12.
