Commissioners allocate remaining ARPA funds
By Matt Smith – Clinton Herald, Iowa (TNS)
Members of the Johnson County Commissioners Court on Dec. 20 faced the challenge of spending $549,429.30 by day’s end. That amount represented the remainder of American Rescue Plan Act funding had to pledge to various purchases and projects by the end of that day or send back to the federal government.
Johnson County received about $34 million in ARPA funding in 2021, funds they had to disperse or pledge by December 2024. The federal government dispersed ARPA funds to counties, cities and other political entities that year to help offset the effects of and/or reimburse costs associated with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Johnson County commissioners used the county’s portion of funding to pay for a new Johnson County Sheriff’s Office dispatch center, among other projects but also awarded funding to numerous charitable organizations and other entities throughout the county.
Court members on Dec. 20 approved payment of about $12,000 for specific items associated with Joshua, Keene, Rio Vista and Venus’ part of the SOMA Global project.
That project, which includes the county and cities within, entails improvement and streamlining of communications and records management systems between participating agencies. The program benefits county and city law enforcement agencies, fire and EMS, emergency services and other offices through allowing them to better communicate and share information with one another.
Court member also approved expenditure of $185,051 for a SOMA-related but separate project for legacy data development and migration through Todo Verde.
Basically, the program compiles and manages historic data from participating law enforcement agencies in the county and includes demographics, arrest data and other information.
Information Commissioner Mike White, a former constable, called beneficial.
“It’s important for officers on the street and for their safety to be able to access that prior history and other information when they’re responding to a situation,” White said.
Of the 21 law enforcement agencies that will participate in the program, all will retain ownership of their department’s data and the ability to determine which data to share and which to not.
Commissioner Rick Bailey whether that might lead to bickering and disgruntlement between departments. Sheriff Adam King said he doesn’t think so.
“I want to share all the data possible from my department with all officers in the county,” King said. “It’s a safety thing for those officers to know as much as they can about where they’re going, past histories and things they may be dealing with.
“Now, there are some things we can’t share such as active investigations and other sensitive matters until those cases are resolved and so for those reasons we need to leave it up to each agency to determine what they can and cannot share.”
The cost is for development and set up costs of the system, County Judge Chris Boedeker said. The individual agencies, he said, will assume the costs of participation in the system going forward.
Those decisions left commissioners still with about $351,000 in ARPA funding to allocate.
For that, Boedeker said he turned to Grant Works, a company the county hired to assist with federal compliance and dispersal of the ARPA funds.
“I was told we can compile a list of projects and a memorandum of understanding to spend those funds,” Boedeker said.
Commissioners approved a list of five county buildings targeted for renovations in the near future.
“The $351,000 won’t pay for all of those projects and maybe not for any one of them,” Boedeker said. “But approving this gives us the ability to use those ARPA funds for the cost of one or a portion of all of those projects. So, with today’s approval we’ll now look at those identified projects to figure out which one we want to start with in the next few months.”
All of the ARPA projects committed to must be completed by Dec. 31, 2026, Boedeker added.
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