By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
ST. JOSEPH – With nearly $30 million to spend in American Rescue Plan Act funding, county officials are looking at ways they help local municipalities get a variety of projects done.
Last week’s Berrien County Board of Commissioners meeting featured discussion on the process to work with local governments and a consensus to have county staff develop an application form. The county board is expected to vote on the form at this week’s meeting and then send it out to local municipalities.
The matter came up at the end of last week’s county board meeting with County Board Vice-Chairwoman Teri Freehling raising the question in other business at the close of the meeting. She chaired the meeting in Chairman McKinley Elliott’s absence.
Freehling noted the county board hasn’t yet approved the new strategic plan for the county which is supposed to guide county decisions in spending the $30 million in ARPA funding. Local and county governments must spend the money they’re getting by the end of 2024.
“I’m asking if commissioners are interested in working in parallel on this in partnership with municipalities and organizations,” she said. “The reason I ask is that I don’t know if we will have the chance to discuss the full strategic plan for another month. If we ask for applications now, we can have them ready to look at along with the plan.”
“There is a growing sense of anxiety that the end of 2024 is a hard deadline to have projects done,” County Administrator Brian Dissette said. “The lesson we learned from the CARES Act was to not get in the position where we have to rush at the end.”
Dissette said he initially planned to have the county board adopt the new strategic plan and then roll out applications to local governments but he now thinks the plan and the application form should be done at the same time.
“The application form gives local governments an opportunity for input, transparency and collaboration and it gives us the pulse of what the needs are in Berrien County,” Freehling said.
She pointed that not only does the money have to be spent by the end of 2024, there’s also the matter of finding contractors to do the work. “This helps us start the discussion and we are in competition with other counties and even other states for contractors,” she said.
One of the projects several townships have mentioned pursuing is expanding broadband internet service to rural and underserved areas. Commissioner Ezra Scott said he’d like to not only set aside the $6 million consultant Jim Hettinger suggested for rural broadband but also another $2 million to connect all county buildings.
“I’ll go on record that I don’t want $6 million but $8 million,” Scott said. “$6 million would go to residents and $2 million to connect all county facilities and infrastructure to bring them up to 21stCentury standards. We have county road garages that don’t have good internet service.”
Dissette said he expects that “multiple” townships will be asking for county funding to help them improve broadband service but also thinks local governments are looking at spending ARPA funds on other projects. He said he expects to see some “creative” projects approached such as for water and sewer infrastructure, parks and housing.
“The only way we will find out is if we push out this application form,” he said. “By the time local units of government decide what they want to do, we are still talking multiple months … The sooner we open the process, the sooner we can see projects completed.”
Although they agreed informally to have the application form developed, commissioners appear to still be in disagreement over what they want to see in the new strategic plan. Commissioner Mamie Yarbrough said she wants the board to have a retreat to hash out differences and make sure the money is spent in a fair way.
She questioned why the county or local governments would spend money on broadband when the federal government is also putting money into that effort.
Commissioner Mike Majerek asked if it would be good to have an open meeting with municipal leaders to talk about the process. Dissette said contact has already been made with local leaders and he thinks some are ready to apply for funds from the county. “It’s not going to be real tough, if there’s a greenlight to proceed we will get a response,” he said.
The proposed county strategic plan presented to the county board by consultant Jim Hettinger called for the $30 million to be split up on a variety of projects. He said his overall goal with the proposed strategic plan is to help the county find the highest and best use for its resources including the ARPA funding.
He suggested splitting up the nearly $30 million in ARPA funds with $6 million spent on high speed internet, $14 million on amenities, water quality and trails, $6 million on road projects and $3.8 million on administrative projects and unforeseen expenditures.
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