Friday was the deadline for entities to submit an application for some of the nearly $13 million left in Cole County federal COVID-19 relief funds.
Twenty-seven assessment forms were received with funding requests totaling $36.5 million.
Now the American Rescue Plan Advisory Committee to the Cole County Commission will look over the forms and come back, potentially next week, with its recommendations for the County Commission. Ultimately, the commission has the final say on how ARP money is spent.
In February, the group decided an application for funds could help it make decisions on how to allocate the money. The commission and advisory committee were interested in seeing how many entities are looking to get the funds so the forms ask for general information about the groups and ask for more details on the projects for which the money would be spent.
Along with taking care of internal needs of county government, the county's ARP funds will go for projects benefiting health care, nonprofits (which could include religious organizations), businesses in the county and political subdivisions (which could include water districts, fire protection districts and school districts.)
The 27 assessment forms came from entities such as: the Cole County Fire Protection District asking for $720,000 to fully fund the purchase of self-contained breathing apparatuses; Jefferson City YMCA asking for $134,000 to partially fund the building of multipurpose, Pickleball and tennis courts; the Special Learning Center asking for $500,000 to partially fund an expansion of its facility; and the city of Taos asking for $100,000 to fully fund the establishment of a city hall.
In May, the county received $7.4 million in ARP funds and is expected to get $7.6 million later this year to give it a total of $15 million.
The commission has already approved $1.5 million of ARP funds be used to give premium pay to county staff who have had to face hazards while working during the pandemic. They also have ARP money paying the $611,000 contract for the work to be performed by BKD over the five years of the ARP process, although commissioners have said they don't believe they'll use that entire amount.
The commission has also chosen to use the standard allowance of up to $10 million of their total ARP funds to help replace lost public revenue that's allowed under ARP guidelines. These funds can be used for anything the local government traditionally provided and could be used for COVID-19 public health and economic response.
At Tuesday's meeting, Presiding Commissioner Sam Bushman said they needed to start looking at internal county needs "sooner rather than later."
Cole County Sheriff John Wheeler and EMS Chief Eric Hoy have asked for $2.5 million in ARP money to improve communication technology among all emergency service agencies in the county. They said it could help start the process for eventually having a joint 911 communication service for the entire county.
Public Works Director Eric Landwehr suggested using ARP funds for stormwater work, and the department submitted a needs assessment form asking for $2.4 million. In October, Landwehr asked the commission to consider using ARP funds to do studies and construct projects for stormwater mitigation in the Apache Flats, Westview Heights and Natchez Trace areas that experienced flooding last summer.
Roger Schwartz, advisory committee chairman, said the committee would look to divide out what projects would be for public entities, non-public entities, internal county government needs and for other municipalities in the county. Then come back to the commission with a recommendation on what projects they felt would be best for ARP money.