With nearly $4 million of its $33 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds already approved, the Porter County ARPA Steering Committee meets Thursday evening to further the process of making recommendations to the County Commissioners on the use of the remaining $29 million.

The Steering Committee met June 16 to whittle down the list of contenders. Four sub-committees had previously met at 23 public hearings over 10 weeks to analyze proposals from 63 applicants, ranging from county departments to private not-for-profits, asking for $53 million in funding. Porter County Auditor Vicki Urbanik explained that consideration of the many proposed projects was significant as the county is under no obligation to share its allocation with any groups outside of county governance.

The subcommittees were able to trim down that list to 48 projects totaling $35 million. Porter County will be taking advantage of a $10 million flexible category for revenue replacement, meaning that up to $10 million in awards can be used to provide government services up to the amount of revenue lost during the pandemic. The other $23 million must fall into the four federally-specified categories of: Non-Profits and Employers; Infrastructure and Facilities; County Government COVID Health Response; and Behavioral Health and Social Services.

The Steering Committee agreed to a system devised by County Council President Jeremy Rivas, D-2, that created a mean score for all the applicants in each category. The committee agreed to automatically pass for consideration all category applicants above the mean score, and take under advisement on an individual basis any below the mean.

Non-profits and Employers saw 12 applicants above the mean threshold with a total of $7.3 million requested.

Seven Infrastructure and Facilities applicants above the mean score requested a total of $6.5 million.

In the COVID Response category, 12 projects met the mean cutoff and totaled $3.7 million, including updates to the county website that would improve the experience of the public viewing public meetings and the auditor’s transfer books online.

In the Behavioral Health and Social Services category, five proposals that scored above the mean and totaling $3.1 million were approved for recommendation of funding in a unanimous motion, while two others were forwarded to Thursday’s meeting pending further research by the committee.

“We’ve gotten a lot of pushback over the years over the sale of the hospital and the hospital proceeds and what we’ve done with it and invested it and been able to keep people’s taxes low in this county,” said Rivas of his vision for how this grant would fit into the county’s development. “This is a great opportunity for us to give money out to the nonprofits around this county, and it’s no small amount.”

Disseminated under the State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund, all funds will be closely monitored to meet the Treasury Department’s compliance and reporting guidance.

“We will be audited on our internal controls and all of this is designed to ensure that we are in compliance so that everyone who spends the money or has access to this money is carrying out the process properly so that we don’t get an audit finding and under the worst-case-scenario have to repay back some of the funds,” Urbanik said.

Once a recommendation has been made to the County Commissioners, they will consider the recommendation for adoption, possibly as early as July 12. Once adopted by commissioners, the County Council would then take a vote on the plan, possibly as early as July 26, on appropriating funds.

Federal law dictates all funds must be contracted out by the end of 2024, and spent by the end of 2026. However, the county has chosen to impose a tighter internal deadline of July 1, 2024, to allow time for reallocation of funds should any of the originally-approved projects fall through.

Urbanik said the timeline is not guaranteed, but expects the process to move quickly in order to meet the federal construction deadline.

“I think there’s a feeling that this has been a major endeavor in our county, and we would like to get a plan, rather than delay it,” she said.

Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.